shuddered in agony. It was doubtful whether her intervention at that
early period would have done any good. They were following the law of
the country, and if she had managed to prevent the act they would
probably have resorted to the ordeal thereafter in secret; and her
object was to show them a better way.

Immediately after this the men of the village left on an expedition of
revenge against a number of mourners with whom they had quarrelled. A
week of rioting followed. Then a freeman died in the neighbourhood, and
once more the village was deserted. Mary, meanwhile, moved hither and
thither, making friends with the women, healing the sick, tending the
children, and doing any little service that came in her way.

The return to normal conditions brought her into active conflict with
the powers of evil. The mistress of a harem in the vicinity bought a
good-looking young woman whom the master coveted, and she became a
slave-wife. She appeared sullen and unhappy. One afternoon Mary saw her
mudding a house that was being built for a new free-born wife, and
spoke to her kindly in passing. A few minutes later the girl made her
way to one of her master's farms, and sat down in the hut of a slave.
The latter was alarmed, knowing well what the consequences would be,
but she refused to move. The man went off to his work, and she walked
into the forest and hanged herself. Next morning the slave was brought
in heavily ironed, and at a palaver the master and his relatives
decreed he must die; they had been degraded by being associated in this
way with a common slave.

Mary, who was present, protested against the injustice of the sentence;
the man, she argued, had done no wrong; it was not his fault that the
girl had gone to his hut. "But," was the reply, "he has used sorcery