“He got fearfully roused at not finding her by the afternoon, and sprang up after writing a line or two of his copy (he insisted on attending School) to go in search, beginning at the nearest villages, armed with club and killing-stone, and nearly frightening the life out of a dumpy little virago, who was in the habit of hen-pecking her own husband. It was capital to see her thoroughly cowed for once! His wrath grew with his want of success; and, returning after school, he told our boys in a tone of suppressed rage that he was now going to Towleka to kill Litsi if he found her there. One of them flew through the bush to warn her of his approach, and John and I went to the Study to commit her to God. I think I would have gone mad myself, if we had not had our never-failing Refuge in these troublous times! “We heard after retiring for the night an infant’s piteous wail, and found that, failing to get the mother (for the Natives would not let him finish her quite, though he dragged her out of the house by her hair, _wool_ rather), he had torn the baby from her and rushed home with it, knowing that she would follow it at any risk. It was _awfully_ hard to keep John in the house, but I felt there was not the slightest use in going. We heard other voices remonstrating, and the cries ceasing we knew that Litsi had come. About midnight, what seemed to be the death wail in Litsi’s voice made us think he had murdered the baby. It continued for about three hours, and rose to a perfect agony of distress before stopping. On inquiry at daybreak, for which we anxiously waited, it turned out that he had tied her arms and legs in the most savage manner, only loosing her when two or three Natives went to the rescue. It was at the risk of their lives they did it, and all warned us not to go to their house that morning, as he was raving mad and would not hesitate to kill any one coming near. “We just felt that poor Litsi had all the more right to our sympathy, when no one else would go. They insisted that she was dead and the baby too, there was such silence round all the place. John would not let me go alone, and I would not let him go alone, so we compromised the matter by going together, and took a plentiful breakfast as an excuse for intruding on his lordship’s privacy, the Natives looking after with wistful eyes, but not one offering to accompany us to the lion’s den! I trembled violently, though I felt the Lord was with us, and was almost relieved when we found the house deserted; but John called aloud for Litsi several times, and at last she came staggering from an enclosure opposite, from which the occupant had fled when Mungaw first went mad. She was trembling with pain and weakness, and when we were going over the stile, she looked back alarmed and said, ‘You’d better not, Missi,’ so we spoke a few cheering words as we stood, and told her again that our house was open to her, night or day, whenever she needed shelter.