rest are slaves, and
can be sold or flogged or killed at their owner's pleasure. It is all
right when they are treated kindly, but think of the kind of men the
masters are. All the tribes are wild and cruel and cunning, and pass
their days and nights in fighting each other and in dancing and
drinking, and there are some that are cannibals and feast on the bodies
of those they have slain. Their religion is the fear of spirits, one of
blood and sacrifice, in which there is no _love_. When a chief dies, do
you know what happens to his wives and slaves? Their heads are cut off
and they are buried with him to be his companions in the spirit-land."

[Illustration: A POT INTO WHICH TWINS WERE PUT.]

Mary shivered. "It must be awful for the children," she said.

"Ah, yes, nearly all are slaves, and their masters look upon them as if
they were sheep or pigs. They are his wealth. As soon as they are able
to walk they begin to carry loads on their heads, and paddle canoes and
sweep and clean out the yards. Often they are beaten or branded with a
hot iron, or get their ears cut off. They sleep on the ground without
any covering. When the girls grow up they are hidden away in the _uf[:o]k
nkukh[:o]_, or 'house of seclusion,' and made very fat, and then become the
slave-wives of the masters or freemen. And the twins! Poor mites. For
some reason the people fear them worse than death, and they are not
allowed to live; they are killed and crushed into pots and thrown away
for leopards to eat. The mother is hounded into the bush, where she must
live alone. She, too, is afraid of the twin-babies, and she would murder
them if others did not."

Mary cried out in hot rage against so cruel a system.

"Oh," she said, "I want to fight it; I want to save those innocent
babes."

"Right, lassie," replied "Mammy," "and we need a hundred more like you
to help."

Mary jumped to her feet. "The first thing I have to do," she said, "is
to learn the language. I can do nothing until I know it well."

Efik is the chief tongue spoken in this part of Africa, and so quickly
did she pick it up and master it that the people said she was "blessed
with an Efik mouth"; and then her old dream came true, and she began to
teach the black boys and girls in the day school. There were not many,
for the chiefs did not believe in educating them. The bigger ones wore
only a red or white shirt, while the wee ones had nothing on at all, and
they carried their slate