By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti WarHenty, G. A. (George Alfred)
General
By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
Ashanti war, 1873-1874 -- Juvenile fiction
“My boy,” he said, “I have been making my will. I fear that it is all
over with me. Fever and dysentery together are in nine cases out of ten
fatal. Don't cry, Frank,” he said, as the lad burst into tears. “I would
gladly have lived, but if it is God's will that it should be otherwise,
so be it. I have no wife or near relatives to regret my loss--none, my
poor boy, who will mourn for me as sincerely as I know that you will do.
In the year that we have been together I have come to look upon you as
my son, and you will find that I have not forgotten you in my will. I
have written it in duplicate. If you have an opportunity send one of
these letters down to the coast. Keep the other yourself, and I trust
that you will live to carry it to its destination. Should it not be so,
should the worst come to the worst, it will be a consolation to you to
know that I have not forgotten the little sister of whom you have spoken
to me so often, and that in case of your death she will be provided
for.”
An hour later Mr. Goodenough was in a state of delirium, in which he
remained all night, falling towards morning into a dull coma, gradually
breathing his last, without any return of sensibility, at eight in the
morning.
Frank was utterly prostrated with grief, from which he roused himself to
send to the king to ask permission to bury his friend.
The king sent down to say how grieved he was to hear of the white man's
death. He had ordered many of his warriors to attend his funeral. Frank
had a grave dug on a rising spot of ground beyond the marsh. In the
evening a great number of the warriors gathered round the house, and
upon the shoulders of four of them Mr. Goodenough was conveyed to his
last resting place, Frank and the German missionaries following with
a great crowd of warriors. The missionaries read the service over the
grave, and Frank returned heart broken to his house, with Ostik, who
also felt terribly the loss of his master.
Two days later a wooden cross was erected over the grave. Upon this
Frank carved the name of his friend. Hearing a week afterwards that the
king was sending down a messenger to Cape Coast, Frank asked permission
to send Mr. Goodenough's letter by him. The king sent for him.
“I do not wish any more troubles,” he said, “or that letters should be
sent to the governor. You are my guest. When the troubles are settled I
will send you down to the coast; but we have many things to write about,
and I do not want more subjects for talk.”
Frank showed the letter and read the address, and told the king that it
was only a letter to the man of business of Mr. Goodenough in England,
giving directions for the disposal of his property there.
The king then consented that his messenger should take the letter.
At the end of December, when Frank had been nearly three months at
Coomassie, one of the Germans said to him:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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