‘It is very easy for you,’ I added to the husband, ‘to bear false witness against your wife, and so deceive us by lies; but how will it be when you have to face those lies at the judgement-seat of God?’ He was startled for a moment, but soon recovered himself, and stuck to his charge. When we rejoined the others, I said, ‘I feel quite satisfied that this man is bringing a false charge against his wife, but, as he holds to it, we must probe the affair to the bottom.’ I asked him if he had any witnesses, and he named some. I caused them to be summoned. I again turned to him and asked, ‘Who is the other culprit, do you know him?’ He answered that he did not, that he was a petty chief from the north. I asked, ‘Would you know him again if you saw him?’ He replied that he would not. ‘That,’ I said, ‘is rather unfortunate for you, because you must find him and bring him before me, as we must get to the bottom of this business.’ He replied that he was not going to trouble himself hunting for him or bringing him before me. We might seek him if we liked, but he would not. ‘But,’ I said, ‘the matter cannot be settled in that way, it is far too serious. You know that, for the time being, we are “father and mother” to both districts of Vònizòngo.’ He replied that he did. ‘Then,’ I said, ‘in virtue of that, your wife is our daughter, and as we believe her to be quite innocent of the charges you bring against her, we mean to stand by her and have her proved innocent. I give you a month to seek for that petty chief, and bring him before me; but if you fail, I shall write to the prime minister to ask him, as a personal favour, for a sergeant and six soldiers to go with you to help you to find that man; because if he is still alive and in the island he must be found and brought before me.’ The man looked at me with astonishment and terror, and if he had been a European he would have turned deathly pale; but, as it was, his colour became something between a green and an ashy grey hue, and when he had found his tongue it was to confess that the whole charge was false! The thought of meeting his falsehoods at the judgement-seat of God had no terrors for him (although, poor fellow, he was nearer eternity than he or any of us thought, for he died within three months); but to face the prime minister was too serious a matter. That was an unusually serious case, but it will help to give some idea of the work which we had to undertake.