Mamba is Succoured by one of the “Ancient Soot,” and fulfils his Mysterious Mission.  
When Laihova and Mamba took the reckless “headers” which we have described in a former chapter, they tumbled into a court-yard which was used as a sort of workshop. Fortunately for them the owner of the house was not a man of orderly habits. He was rather addicted to let rubbish lie till stern necessity forced him to clear it away. Hence he left heaps of dust, shavings, and other things to accumulate in heaps. One such heap happened to lie directly under the window through which the adventurous men plunged, so that, to their immense satisfaction, and even surprise, they came down soft and arose unhurt.
 
Instantly they slipped into an outhouse, and there held hurried converse in low tones.
 
“What will you do now?” asked Laihova.
 
“I will remain where I am till night-fall, for I dare not show myself all bruised like this. When it is dark I will slip out and continue my journey to the coast.”
 
“To Tamatave?” asked Laihova, naming the chief seaport on the eastern side of Madagascar.
 
“Yes, to Tamatave.”
 
“Do you go there to trade?”
 
“No. I go on important business.”
 
It was evident that, whatever his business might be, Mamba, for reasons best known to himself, resolved to keep his own counsel. Seeing this, his friend said—
 
“Well, I go to the eastward also, for Ravoninohitriniony awaits me there; but I fear that our English friends will be thrown into prison.”
 
“Do you think so?” asked Mamba, anxiously. “If you think I can be helpful I will give up my important business and remain with you.”
 
“You cannot help us much, I think. Perhaps your presence may be a danger instead of a help. Besides, I have friends here who have power. And have we not God to direct us in all things? No, brother, as your business is important, go.”
 
Mamba was evidently much relieved by this reply, and his friend saw clearly that he had intended to make a great personal sacrifice when he offered to remain.
 
“But now I must myself go forth without delay,” continued Laihova. “I am not well-known here, and, once clear of this house, can walk openly and without much risk out of the city. Whatever befalls the Englishmen, Ravoninohitriniony and I will help and pray for them.”
 
Another minute and he was gone. Passing the gates without arousing suspicion, he was soon walking rapidly towards the forest in which his friend Ravonino lay concealed.
 
Meanwhile, Mamba hid himself behind some bags of grain in the outhouse until night-fall, when he sallied boldly forth and made his way to the house of a friend, who, although not a Christian, was too fond of him to refuse him shelter.
 
This friend was a man of rank and ancient family. The soot hung in long strings from his roof-tree. He was one of “the ancient soot!”
 
The houses in the city are usually without ceiling—open to the ridge-pole, though there is sometimes an upper chamber occupying part of the space, which is reached by a ladder. There are no chimneys, therefore, and smoke from the wood and grass fires settles upon the rafters in great quantities inside. As it is never cleared away, the soot of course accumulates in course of time and hangs down in long pendants. So far from considering this objectionable, the Malagasy have come to regard it with pride; for, as each man owns his own house, the great accumulations of soot have come to be regarded as evidence of the family having occupied the dwelling from ancient times. Hence the “old families” are sometimes complimented by the sovereign, in proclamations, by being styled “the ancient soot!”
 
The particular Ancient Soot who accorded hospitality that night to Mamba was much surprised, but very glad, to see him. “Have you arrived?” he asked, with a good deal of ceremonial gesticulation.
 
“I have arrived,” answered Mamba.
 
“Safely and well, I hope.”
 
“Safely and well,” replied Mamba—ceremonially of course, for in reality he had barely arrived with life, and certainly not with a sound skin.
 
“Come in, then,” said the Ancient Soot. “And how are you? I hope it is well with you. Behold, spread a mat for him, there, one of you. And is it well with you?”
 
“Well indeed,” said Mamba once again, falsely but ceremonially.
 
“May you live to grow old!” resumed Soot. “And you have arrived safely? Come in. Where are you going?”
 
“I’m going yonder—westward,” replied Mamba, with charming conventional vagueness, as he sat down on the mat.
 
“But it appears to me,” said Ancient Soot, passing from the region of compliment into that of fact, and looking somewhat closely at his friend, “it seems to me that you have been hurt.”
 
Mamba now explained the exact state of the case, said that he required a good long rest, after that a hearty meal, then a lamba and a little money, for he had been despoiled of everything he had possessed by the furious crowd that so nearly killed him.
 
His kind host was quite ready to assist him in every way. In a few minutes he was sound asleep in a little chamber on the rafters, where he could rest without much risk of disturbance or discovery.
 
All next day he remained in hiding. When it began to grow dusk his host walked with him through the streets and through the gates, thus rendering his passage less likely to be observed—for this particular Ancient Soot was well-known in the town.
 
“I will turn now. What go you to the coast for?” asked his friend, when about to part.
 
“You would laugh at me if I told you,” said Mamba.
 
“Then tell me not,” returned his friend, with much delicacy of feeling, “for I would be sorry to laugh at my friend.”
 
Thus they parted. Ancient Soot returned to the home of his forefathers, and Mamba walked smartly along the road that leads to the seaport of Tamatave.
 
He spent that night in the residence of a friend; the next in the hut of a government wood-cutter.
 
Felling timber, as might be supposed, was, and still is, an important branch of industry in Madagascar. Forests of varied extent abound in different parts of the country, and an immense belt of forest of two or three days’ journey in width covers the interior of the island. These forests yield abundance of timber of different colour and texture, and of various degrees of hardness and durability.
 
The wood-cutter, an old man, was busy splitting a large tree into planks by means of wedges when our traveller came up. This wasteful method of obtaining planks is still practised by some natives of the South Sea Islands. Formerly the Malagasy never thought of obtaining more than two planks out of a single tree, however large the tree might be. They merely split the tree down the middle, and then chopped away the outside of each half until it was reduced to the thickness required. The advent of the English missionaries, however, in the early part of this century, introduced light in regard to the things of time as well as those of eternity-among other things, the pit-saw, which has taught the natives to “gather up the fragments so that nothing be lost.” Thick planks are still however sometimes procured in the old fashion.
 
The wood-cutter belonged to “The Seven Hundred” which constituted the government corps. The members of this corps felled timber for the use of the sovereign. They also dragged it to the capital, for oxen were never employed as beasts of burden or trained to the yoke. The whole population around the capital was liable to be employed on this timber-hauling work—and indeed on any government work—without remuneration and for any length of time! After the usual exhaustive questions and replies as to health, etcetera, the old man conducted his visitor to his hut and set food before him. He was a solitary old fellow, but imbued with that virtue of hospitality which is inculcated so much among the people.
 
Having replied to the wood-cutter’s first inquiry that he was “going yonder,” Mamba now saw fit to explain that “yonder” meant Tamatave.
 
“I want to see the great Missionary Ellis before he leaves the country.”
 
The wood-cutter shook his head. “You are too late, I fear. He passed down to the coast some weeks ago. The Queen has ordered him to depart. She is mad against all the praying people.”
 
“Are you one of the praying people?” asked Mamba, with direct simplicity.
 
“Yes, and I know that you are,” answered the wood-cutter with a smile.
 
“How know you that?”
 
“Did I not see your lips move and your eyes look up when you approached me on arriving?”
 
“True, I prayed to Jesus,” said Mamba, “that I might be made use of to help you, or you to help me.”
 
“Then your prayer is doubly answered,” returned the old man, “for we can each help the other. I can give you food and lodging. You can carry a message to Tamatave for me.”
 
“That is well. I shall be glad to help you. What is your message?”
 
“It is a message to the missionary, Ellis, if you find him still there; but even if he is gone you will find a praying one who can help me. Long have I prayed to the lord that he would send one of his people here to take my message. Some came who looked like praying people, but I was afraid to ask them, and perhaps they were afraid to speak; for, as you know, the Queen’s spies are abroad everywhere now, and if they find one whom they suspect of praying to Jesus they seize him and drag him away to the ordeal of ‘tangena’—perhaps to torture and death. But now you have come, and my prayer is answered. ‘He is faithful who has promised.’ Look here.”
 
The old man went to a corner of the hut, and returned with two soiled pieces of paper in his hand.
 
Sitting down, he spread them carefully on his knees. Mamba recognised them at once as being two leaves out of a Malagasy Bible. Soiled, worn, and slightly torn they were, from long and frequent use, but still readable. On one of them was the twenty-third Psalm, which the old wood-cutter began to read with slow and intense interest.
 
“Is it not grand,” he said, looking up at his young guest with a flush of joy in his care-worn old face, “to think that after this weary wood-cutting is over we shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever? No more toiling and hauling and splitting; above all, no more sin—nothing but praise and work for Him. And how hard I could work for Him!”
 
“Strange!” said Mamba, while the old man gazed at the two soiled leaves as if lost in meditation, “strange that you should show this to me. I have come—but tell me,” he said, breaking off abruptly, “what do you wish me to do?”
 
“This,” said the old man, pointing to the leaves, as though he had not heard the question, “is all that I possess of the Word of God. Ah! well do I remember the time—many years past now—when I had the whole Bible. It was such a happy time then—when good King Radama reigned, and the missionaries had schools and churches and meetings—when we pra............