An agent and protégé of theirs had long been at work in the palace. He received a handsome salary which he also had infamously earned; for he succeeded in seducing some of the chief officials from their allegiance, forming a party in the very cabinet itself, by whom the country was sold, and the people who trusted them basely betrayed. Hence the poor show the Malagasy made in fighting for their fatherland, until they found that they had been betrayed, and then they rose in rebellion against the French rule when it was too late. Madagascar and its people were betrayed, sold, bought, and paid for, and then the chief intriguer, who was also one of the arch-traitors, when he had done his infamous work was flung aside, while it is said that the other arch-traitor and some of his confederates had to pay large sums for their worthless lives. We returned to Madagascar in 1882, but not to our old station, which had been filled up. There was, however, need for some one to take charge of the city church of Ambàtonakànga and the large country district during the furlough of its missionary, and after the way that we had both suffered from fever in Vònizòngo the Directors thought that it would be wiser for us to be in the capital for the first two years to become reacclimatized. The missionary did not return after his furlough, and we were accordingly appointed to take permanent charge of the city church and country district of A-kànga[31], and remained in charge of it for twenty years. [Illustration: MEMORIAL CHURCH, AMBATONAKANGA. INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH.] The interest created in our work, deepened by the many services I had conducted and by my pamphlet, took a very practical form; for the ladies of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Aberdeen sent us four boxes of remnants, patches, sewing-material, and some good cast-off clothing, all of which were of the greatest service to us; for by means of these my wife, assisted by six Malagasy sewing-mistresses, held, for six years, sewing-classes in connexion with the city Congregational school and the village schools for some 700 girls. By that means an immense service was done to the girls in the village schools, such as we could never have done for them had it not been for the efforts of these good and warm-hearted friends. Even such a good work had some drawbacks, however; for as it could not always be carried on some felt aggrieved, and when my wife and daughter came out in 1894, as that work could not be taken up to the same extent, many thought that they were being defrauded of their rights.