The town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid a part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks and bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of gin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement and made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight after all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could not make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind. According to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over anything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out one portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed contained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them. "I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters to my home, and I shall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you will not go to war with one another while I am away." "We promise," they said. They gathered around her and she told them the story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them. "Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no more." And the tribes kept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say, "It is peace." * * * * * For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of times with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out to die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace, healed the sick. At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and along the valleys by some of her "twins" now grown to strong children, and died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith, by which out of weakness she was made strong. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.] Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT CHAPTER XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT _Abdallah and Sabat_ (Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810) _Two Arab Wanderers_ One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the tawny hills standing upon the skyline. The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset, their feet would walk the city of their dreams.