A little to the north-east of the village of Fihàonana a hill rises, and near the foot of it stands a cluster of large boulders. Inside that cluster, during the lulls in the persecution, from ten to thirty of the converts used to hold a Sabbath morning service. Underneath one of the largest of the boulders, at the foot of the hill, there is an artificial cave, dug out by the people to serve as a small-pox hospital for the village: in the dark corner of this cave the Bible was hidden between two slabs of granite. The queen’s officers arrived at the village, as it was expected they would, to search for the Bible and other Christian books, which the queen and government had reason to believe, from the reports of spies, were to be found there. A bootless search was made in the huts of the suspected, in the rice-pits, and in the village fosse; and then the officers directed their way to the cluster of boulders on the hill-side. As they were about to enter the cave where the Bible lay, some one said: ‘I suppose you know that this is the small-pox hospital?’ ‘We did not,’ they said, starting back in horror. ‘Wretch! why did you not tell us sooner? Why did you let us come so near?’ The officers beat a hasty retreat, and the Bible was safe. This particular copy is now, and for many years has been, in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Queen Victoria Street, London. Razàka lay for over two years in hiding in that cave, and during that time he seemed to have learnt most of the Bible by heart. After the martyrdom of Ràmitràha the queen had sent to have him arrested as the ringleader of the ‘prayers’ in Vònizòngo. Had he been caught, he would have been put to death. He had before that been sold into slavery for his religion; but, as a distant relative bought him, his slavery was of a mild type. He heard that the officers had been sent out to arrest him, and went into hiding. A report was spread that he had escaped to the Sàkalàva tribe in the west, and the search was given up. [Illustration: THE MARTYRDOMS AT AMPAMARINANA. (_From a Native Sketch._)] On a dark night he returned to the cave, and there began his long concealment of two years. At night his wife took him rice; in the daytime, when it was safe, he lay at the mouth of the cave and read and re-read the Bible. How many times he read it through I do not know, but I do know that he had the most extraordinary knowledge of the Scriptures of any man I have met. This qualified him for the honour afterwards conferred upon him of becoming native pastor of the mother-church at Fihàonana and the Apostle of the Vònizòngo district.