medicine!"

"Don't go Ma," said Ma Eme, Mary's friend. "You are tired and sick. You
must get back to England. If you go with this man you may miss your
boat. Let someone else go."

"It is a bad tribe. They are always fighting. It is dangerous to go," said
Chief Edem. "Do not go with the man."

"You cannot go," said her other friends at Ekenge. "You are too sick to
walk. The wild animals in the jungle will kill you. The wild warriors are
out. They will kill you in the dark, not knowing who you are."

"But I must go," said Mary.

"If you must go," said Chief Edem, "then you must take two armed men with
you. You must get the chief of the next village to send his drummer with
you. When the people hear the drum, they will know that a protected person
is traveling who must not be hurt."

It was night. Mary Slessor and the two men marched out into the
darkness. The lanterns threw strange shadows that looked like fierce men in
the darkness. At last Mary and her guard came to the village where they
were to ask for the drummer. They told the chief what Chief Edem had said,
but the chief did not want to help them.

"You are going to a fighting tribe," said the chief. "They will not listen
to what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you."

"You don't think a woman can do much. Maybe you are right," said Mary to