The Fugitives: The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

  DOCTOR BREEZY PRESCRIBES FOR THE QUEEN, AND ATTAINS TO TEMPORARY AND"PERFIK F'LICITY."

  While these events were taking place in the forest, Queen Ranavalona waskeeping her Court Physician and his comrades in a state of considerableuneasiness, not only with reference to the safety of their own heads,but because of her violent edicts regarding her Christian subjects.

  She renewed her commands as to the necessity of every one comingforward, on pain of instant death in the event of disobedience, andaccusing themselves, with the reiterated assurance that if they failedto comply and they were afterwards accused by others they should besubjected to the ordeal of the Tangena, and slain or reduced toperpetual slavery if found guilty.

  The whole city was in a panic. No one felt safe. Under the influenceof fear some accused themselves, expecting, no doubt, that theirpunishment would be lightened. Others remained quiet, hoping that theymight escape detection, while many were accused by false friends as wellas by enemies, and fell victims under the poison ordeal. Others, again,stood firm, and boldly proclaimed their faith in the Lord Jesus andtheir readiness to die if need be for His cause.

  After the accusations, trials, and investigations, sentences were readwhich deprived four hundred officers and nobles of their honours, andlevied fines on the remainder to the number of about two thousand. Onewould have thought that the mere necessity for such widespreadpunishment would have shown the Queen how deeply the new religion hadtaken root, and how hopeless it was to attempt its suppression, but shedid not see it in that light. On the contrary, she issued a mandaterequiring all books to be delivered up to her officers, and threateningdeath against any who should keep back or hide even a single leaf. Shealso commanded her subjects never again even to "think of the Christianlessons they had learned, but to blot them from their memories forever!"

  Among those who boldly held to their opinions was the Queen's own sonRakota, who, however, as we have seen, did not run quite so much risk asothers, owing to his mother's affection for him. The Prime Minister'sson, also, and Prince Ramonja, made no effort to conceal their opinions,though they were wise enough to refrain from exasperating the angryQueen by asserting them openly.

  One morning the Prime Minister sent a message to the Court Physician,requiring his immediate attendance at the palace. Mark was seated inhis own room at the time, talking with Hockins and Ebony about thegloomy state of affairs. A slight feeling of dismay fluttered the heartof each when the message came, for death-warrants were much in the airat that time.

  "Oh, massa, p'r'aps dey're a-goin' to kill you!" was the negro'scomforting suggestion.

  "More likely they want him to cure the Queen," said Hockins.

  "Couldn't you, massa," whispered Ebony, with a terribly solemncountenance, "mix a spoonful--a bery small spoonful--ob prussic acid, orcreosote, or suffin ob dat sort, wid 'er physic?"

  Mark laughed, and shook his head as he went out.

  He found Rainiharo, with a tremendous frown on his face and deep linesof care on his brow, seated in front of our friend the Secretary, whohad an open book on his knee. Three other officers of the palace satbeside them. These constituted a court of inquiry into the contents ofthe suspected books, and the Secretary, being the only literarycharacter among them, was the appointed reader.

  "Come here. Sit down," said Rainiharo, sternly pointing to a seat; "wewant you to explain your books. The Queen commands us to examine them,and, if we find anything contrary to her wishes in them, to condemn themto the flames. But it seems to us that there is nothing in them butrubbish which we cannot understand."

  Strange, is it not, that in barbaric as well as in civilised lands,people are apt to regard as rubbish that which they do not understand?

  So thought the Court Physician, but he wisely held his tongue and satdown.

  "This book," said the Prime Minister, pointing with a look of mingledcontempt and exasperation to the volume on the Secretary's knee, "isworse than the last. The one we condemned yesterday was what you callyour Bible. We began with it because it was the biggest book. Beingpractical men we began at the beginning, intending to go straightthrough and give it a fair hearing. We began at Gen--Gen--what was it?"

  "Genesis," answered the Secretary.

  "Genzis--yes. Well, we found nothing to object to in the first verse,but in the second--the very second--we found the word `darkness.' Thiswas sufficient! Queen Ranavalona does not like darkness, so wecondemned it at once--unanimously--for we could not for a momenttolerate anything with _darkness_ in it."

  Mark felt an almost irresistible desire to laugh outright, but as thegratification of that desire might have cost him his head he did resistit successfully.

  "Now," continued the Prime Minister, with a darker frown, "we have gotto the Pil--Pil--what is it?"

  "_Pilgrim's Progress_," answered the Secretary. "Just so--the _Pilgim'sProgress_. Well, we agreed that we would give the _Pil--Pilgim'sProgress_ a better chance, so we opened it, as it were, anyhow, and whatdo we come on--the very first thing--but a man named Obstinate! Now, ifthere is one thing that the Queen hates more than another it is anobstinate man. She cannot abide obstinate men. In fact, she has nonesuch about her, for the few men of that sort that have turned up now andthen have invariably lost their heads. But we wanted to be fair, so weread on, and what do we find as one of the first things that Obstinatesays? He says, `Tush! away with your book!' Now, if the man himselfcondemns the book, is our Queen likely to spare it? But there are somethings in the book which we cannot understand, so we have sent for youto explain it. Now," added Rainiharo, turning to the Secretary,"translate all that to the maker of physic and tell me what he has toanswer."

  It was a strange and difficult duty that our young student was thusunexpectedly and suddenly called to perform, and never before had hefelt so deeply the difference between knowing a subject and expoundingit. There was no escape, however, from the situation. He was not onlybound by fear of his life, but by Scripture itself, "to give a reason ofthe hope that was in him," and he rose to the occasion with vigour,praying, mentally, for guidance, and also blessing his mother for havingsubjected him in childhood--much against his will!--to a pretty stiffand systematic training in the truths of Scripture as well as in thestory of the _Pilgrim's Progress_.

  But no exposition that he could give sufficed to affect the foregoneconclusion that both the Bible and the Pilgrim, containing as they didmatter that was offensive to the Queen, were worthy of condemnation,and, therefore, doomed to the flames.

  Having settled this knotty point in a statesmanlike manner, Rainiharobade Mark and the Secretary remain with him, and dismissed his threecolleagues.

  "You see," he said, after some moments of anxious thought, "although Iagree with the Queen in her desire to stamp out the Christian religion,I have no desire that my son and my nephew should be stamped out alongwith it; therefore I wish to have your assistance, doctor, in turningthe mind of Ranavalona away from persecution to some extent for in herpresent mood she is dangerous alike to friend and foe. Indeed I wouldnot give much for your own life if she becomes more violent. How isthis to be done, think you?"

  The question was indeed a puzzler, for it amounted to this--

  "How are we to manage a furious, blood-thirsty woman with the reinsloose on her neck and the bit fast in her teeth?"

  "I know not," said Mark at last, "but I will think the matter over andtalk with you again."

  "If I may be allowed to speak," said the Secretary.

  "You are allowed," returned the Premier.

  "Then I would advise that the Queen should arrange a grand journey--aprocession--all over the country, with thousands of her soldiers. Thiswill let her have plenty of fresh air and exercise, change of scene, andexcitement, and will give her something to do till her blood cools. Atthe same time it will show the people her great power and perhaps inducethem to be cautious how they resist her will."

  "The idea i
s good," said Mark, with animation, "so good that I wouldadvise its being carried out immediately--even before another weekpasses."

  Rainiharo shook his head. "Impossible. There is to be a greatbull-fight this week, and you know Ranavalona will allow nothing tointerfere with that. Besides, it takes time to get up such anexpedition as you suggest. However, I like the notion well. Go. Iwill think over it and see you again."

  The bull-fighting to which the Premier referred was a favouriteamusement with this blood-thirsty woman, and the spectacle usually tookplace in the royal court-yard. Rainiharo was right when he said theQueen would not forego it, but she was so pleased with the plan of aroyal progress through the country that she gave orders to make readyfor it at once in an extensive scale.

  "You will of course accompany me," she said to Mark, when he wassummoned to a subsequent audience, "I may be ill, or my bearers may falland I may be injured."

  "Certainly," he replied, "nothing would afford the Court Physiciangreater pleasure than to attend upon her Majesty on such an expedition.But I would ask a favour," continued Mark. "May my black servantaccompany me? He is very useful in assisting me with my medicines,and--"

  "Yes, yes," interrupted the Queen, "let him go with you by all means.He shall have bearers if you choose. And take yon other man also--withhis music. I love his little pipe!"

  In some excitement Mark went off to tell his comrades the news--whichHockins received with a grunt of satisfaction, and the negro with aburst of joy. Indeed the anxieties and worries they had recentlyexperienced in the city, coupled with the tyranny and bloodshed whichthey witnessed, had so depressed the three friends that the mere idea ofgetting once again into the fresh free open plains and forests affordedthem pleasure somewhat akin to that of the school-boy when he obtains anunexpected holiday.

  Great was the excitement all over the country when the Queen's intentionwas made known. The idea was not indeed a novelty. Malagasy sovereignshad been in the habit of making such progresses from time to time informer years. The wise King Radama the First frequently went on huntingexpeditions with more or less of display. But knowing as they did, onlytoo well, the cruel character of Ranavalona the First, the people fearedthat the desire to terrify and suppress had more to do with the eventthan pleasure or health.

  At last, everything being complete, the Queen left the capital, anddirected her course to the south-westward. Her enormous retinueconsisted of the members of the Government, the principal military andcivil officers and their wives, six thousand soldiers, and a host ofslaves, bearers, and other attendants; the whole numbering about 40,000souls.

  Great preparations had been made for the journey in the way of providinglarge stores of rice, herds of cattle, and other provisions, but thosewho knew the difficulties of the proposed route, and the thinlypopulated character of the country, looked with considerableapprehension on the prospects of the journey. Some there were, nodoubt, who regarded these prospects with a lively hope that the Queenmight never more return to her capital!

  Of course such a multitude travelled very slowly, as may well bebelieved when it is said that they had about 1500 palanquins in thehost, for there was not a wheeled vehicle in Madagascar at that time.The soldiers were formed in five divisions; one carrying the tents, onethe cooking apparatus and spears, and one the guns and sleeping-mats.The other two had always to be in readiness for any service requiredabout the Queen. The camp was divided into four parts; the Queen beingin the middle, in a blue tent, surrounded, wherever she halted for thenight, by high palisades, and near to this was pitched a tent containingthe idols of the royal family. The tent of the Prime Minister, with theMalagasy flag, was pitched to the north of that of the Queen. East,west, and south, were occupied by other high officers of State, andamong the latter was the tent of our friends, Mark, Hockins, and Ebony.

  "Now," said the first of these, as he sat in the door of the tent oneevening after supper, watching the rich glow of sunshine that flooded awide stretch of beautiful country in front of him, "this would beperfect felicity if only we had freedom to move about at our ownpleasure and hunt up the treasures in botany, entomology, etcetera, thatare scattered around us."

  "True, Massa," returned Ebony, "it would be perfik f'licity if we couldforgit de poor Christ'ns in chains an' pris'ns."

  "Right, Ebony, right. I am selfishly thinking only of myself at thepresent moment. But let us hope we may manage to do these poorChristians good before we leave the land."

  "I don't think, myself, that we'll get much fun out o' this trip,"remarked Hockins. "You see the Queen's too fond o' your physickin' andof my tootootlin' to part with us even for a day at a time. If we waslike Ebony, now, we might go where we liked an' no one ud care."

  "Ob course not," replied the negro, promptly, "peepil's nebber anxiousabout whar wise men goes to; it's on'y child'in an' stoopid folk dey'sgot to tink about. But why not ax de Queen, massa, for leabe ob absenceto go a-huntin'?"

  "Because she'd be sure to refuse," said Mark. "No, I see no way out ofthis difficulty. We are too useful to be spared!"

  But Mark was wrong. That very night he was sent for by the PrimeMinister, and as he passed the Secretary's tent he called him out to actas interpreter. On reaching the tent on the north side they foundRainiharo doubled up on his mat and groaning in agony.

  "What's wrong?" demanded the doctor.

  "Everything!" replied the patient.

  "Describe your feelings," said the doctor.

  "I've--I've got a red-hot stone," groaned Rainiharo, "somewhere in myinwards! Thorny shrubs are revolving in my stomach! Young crocodilesare masticating my--oh!"

  At this point his power of description failed; but that matters little,for, never having met with the disease before, we can neither describeit nor give it a name. The young doctor did not know it, but he knewexactly what to do, and did it. We cannot report what he did, but wecan state the result, which was great relief in a few minutes and aperfect cure before morning! Most men are grateful under suchcircumstances--even the cruel Rainiharo was so.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked, affectionately, next day.

  A sudden inspiration seized the doctor, "Beg the Queen," he said, "tolet me and my two friends wander round the host all day, and every day,for a short time, and I will return to report myself each night."

  "For what purpose?" asked the Premier, in some surprise.

  "To pluck plants and catch butterflies."

  "Is the young doctor anxious to renew his childhood?"

  "Something of the sort, no doubt. But there is medicine in the plants,and--and--interest, if nothing else, in the butterflies."

  "Medicine in the plants" was a sufficient explanation to the Premier.What he said to the Queen we know not, but he quickly returned with therequired permission, and Mark went to his couch that night in a state ofwhat Ebony styled "perfik f'licity."

  Behold our trio, then, once more alone in the great forests ofMadagascar--at least almost alone, for the Secretary was with them, forthe double purpose of gaining instruction and seeing that the strangersdid not lose themselves. As they were able to move about twice as fastas the host, they could wander around, here, there, and everywhere, orrest at pleasure without fear of being left behind.