Robert, through the agency of my _matrimonial bureau_, married a Fang woman, Nze, who loved him devotedly. She was a remarkably good-looking woman—almost beautiful. Poor blind Robert never saw her; and one day, after he had been married for some time, I delighted him—and saddened him too—by giving him a minute description of her. For a while after his marriage I placed him at Ayol, which was Nze’s town. After several months, when I was at Ayol, I decided to take him to another town. Then the heathen relations of Nze suddenly discovered that he had not given sufficient dowry, although he had given all they asked. It was never half so hard to get my African friends married as to _keep_ them married. The family of Nze secured her in a house while they talked the palaver with Robert, telling him that he had not paid what they had asked. The street was filled with people and there was the wildest excitement. The chief of the town was not there, and when I saw that my powers of persuasion were not adequate for the occasion, I told Robert that as it was now late in the night we would go without Nze, and that I myself would afterwards talk the palaver with the chief and would do all that I possibly could to get Nze back. He yielded, but he was almost broken-hearted. We got into our canoe and started for the _Dorothy_, which was anchored a little below the town. When we came alongside whom should we find in the launch but Nze! She had broken out of her prison-house when night came—but I can’t imagine how, unless some Christian woman helped her—and stealing through the dreadful mangrove swamp, had reached her canoe and had gone to the launch. At the very moment that I saw her we heard the wildest yelling behind us. The people of the town had just discovered her escape; and they, of course, thought that we had stolen her. I shouted to the crew to “stand by” for their lives. We sprang aboard, and while weighing the anchor put out all the lights. What if the anchor should be fouled, as it was last time, when it delayed us half an hour!