And yet, bad as all this was, something happened there which made me glad that I was an ordinary prisoner, and not (what I had thought impossible) something worse. Four big, strong young men were suspected of having stolen some rubber from the white man’s store. It may have been a true accusation; that I do not know—no one knows. The white man was furious, and said that he would make an example of them, which he proceeded to do. Four tall poles were procured and planted in the ground at the back of his own house, and the four men were brought. Their heads and beards were shaven, they were stripped of their loin cloths, and tied to these poles, not only by the lower parts of their bodies, but by their heads, so that they could not move at all. This happened in the morning. The sun climbed up, and stood overhead—they were still there. The sun slipped down, down, down—they were still there. No food or water had they tasted all day, so they were parched with thirst. They pled for water, none was given; for a covering for their shame, no notice was taken; and at last, in sheer despair, they entreated that they might be shot—they would rather, far rather, die than endure the shame of remaining any longer in a public place in such a condition. At night they were released from their agony, only to be sent to prison, and finally exiled up river. The charge was never proved against them. But the white man of God heard about the affair, and talked the palaver with the rubber chief, and eventually they were released and came back to their own villages. One day we heard a steamer whistle; it was coming to our landing-place. “Oh, joy! perhaps the white man will let us go,” we thought. He often did send prisoners off to their homes when a steamer whistled, which seemed strange to us in those days, but it mattered not to us why he did it, if only we might get free. To our disappointment he did not do so on this occasion, and we soon heard that the big chief of rubber had come. We wondered what he would do to us, if things might be worse, although we did not see how that could be. Afterwards we found that the white men of God had been writing many letters to him about us and the way in which we were treated, and he had come to see for himself. He did so, with the result that he opened the doors of the prison house, and told us to walk out. He commenced to count us, but gave it up: we were so many. He told us we were free, and could go to our homes. We could scarcely believe it, it seemed to be too good to be true; but we immediately set off with hearts full of joy.