Mou-Setsé: A Negro Hero; The Orphans' Pilgimage: A Story of Trust in God. Meade L. T.
to make a final attack on the place. To make this attack, however, they must take two or three days to prepare. But well did the wretched people inside the city know what was going to happen. Poor little Mou-Setsé and his brothers and sister became at last really alive to their danger. They all cried and wept; but Mou-Setsé, though the youngest, possessed the bravest heart. He knew that crying would do no good; he wondered would it be possible to act, and so to act as to save his brothers and sister. He said nothing to them, but he ran about the town, and chatted to the old women, and finally got them to tell him a secret. This was the secret: as many as possible meant to escape from Eyeo that night. Mou-Setsé thought that he and his brothers and his sister might go too. Perhaps they might soon find their father and mother. Mou-Setsé believed that if only he had his mother’s arms round him again he might be safe. He told his brothers and sister of his plan, and they all agreed to escape that very night. As soon as the night was quite dark they left their hut and went softly in the direction of the city wall. They reached the great city gate in safety, but there a sad scene of confusion met their eyes. Crowds of people were trying to get out, and, in the darkness, many of the feebler ones were killed. It was dreadful to listen to their cries and groans. Mou-Setsé saw that little children would have no chance whatever in such a crowd. He wondered could they climb the wall, but its smooth, hard side, twenty feet high, he soon saw would be utterly impracticable.
Very sadly the children returned home, and most bitter tears did they shed in each other’s arms. Poor little children! they little guessed that never again would they kiss each other, or play together, or be happy with that innocent happiness that the good and loving God gives to little children. Cruel men who followed the devil, not God, were soon to part them the one from the other. In the morning a truly fearful sight met their eyes. The huts were nearly empty; parties of the enemy walked about the streets; the gardens, that used to be so beautiful, were torn and ruined; many aged men, who had killed themselves in their dread of slavery, were lying dead in the streets. A little farther on they heard the crackling of burning wood, and soon the flames of their beloved city burst upon their sight. The enemy had set Eyeo on fire.
Story 1 – Chapter III.
What “The Right of Search” did for Mou-Setsé
No doubt, the children who read this story have heard of slaves; have heard how some little children are not free; how they are sold to any one who will give enough money for them; and that whether they have loving mothers and kind fathers who break their hearts at parting from them. The fathers are sold to one slave master, the mothers to another, the children to another. Often, very often, these children and fathers and mothers never meet again. In these days no slaves are allowed to be kept in any English territory, and even in America the slaves are at last set free. At the time, however, when Mou-Setsé was a little boy, there were numbers of slaves in America, and indeed in many other parts of the world. Mou-Setsé had heard of slaves – for what tiny African boy had not? – and now he knew that he himself was going to be a slave. When he saw the flames rising up in Eyeo, and his beloved home being burnt to ashes, he knew that this fate was before him. “Let us fly!” said his elder brother, whispering eagerly to him in his native tongue; but Mou-Setsé shook his head, for he knew he could not fly. All around was a terrible scene of confusion. Women, carrying children in their arms, were trying to escape from the burning huts; sometimes they were entangled in a prickly bush and thrown down, or they were caught by the cruel enemy and tied together in gangs, so that they could not escape. Mou-Setsé stood quite still, and his brothers and sister, when they saw he could not fly, stayed near him. Soon the bright-looking children attracted attention, and were taken – then immediately they were separated from each other.
Poor little Mou-Setsé, as he was carried away in a gang with many other captives, though he forced the tears back from his eyes, and fried, brave little fellow that he was, to keep up a brave heart, yet could not but cast some lingering glances back at the rocky hills where he and his brothers had often played so happily. He felt in his poor little heart that his play days were over, for how often had his mother told him that there was no play for slave children.
At last, after a long, long journey, little Mou-Setsé and a long gang of other slaves found themselves at a place called Quorra. Here the Portuguese met them, and here they were to be really sold. A trader came to examine Mou-Setsé, and finding him strong and healthy, quickly bought him. He was now to be sold again. The trader, seeing that he was a fine boy and handsome, took great pains with him. He gave him good food, and washed his polished black face, and brushed his woolly locks. He did this from no spirit of kindness, but simply from the desire to get a greater price for him. At last, when he had recovered from the fatigues of his journey, and looked fresh and bright, he brought him into the slave market. Here the traders who came to buy clustered round him and pulled off his clothes, and felt his limbs, and made him run, and leap, and throw his legs and arms about. No one cared whether he liked this treatment or not. He was treated in all respects like an animal without either soul or feeling. In about three hours he was bought by another trader and put, with many of his fellow slaves, into a canoe. They were sailing all that evening and all the next day. They passed through some very beautiful country, and Mou-Setsé might have enjoyed the lovely scenery had his heart been less full of wonder and pain. As it was, however, he could think of nothing but Eyeo and his home. Again and again he seemed to hear his beloved mother’s voice, or he fancied himself looking with pride and admiration at his brave warrior father. Though he loved his mother best, yet it was the remembrance of his father that brought most strength to his poor little heart now; for his father had said to him often in his native language that a brave boy never wept – tears were for women and girls, but not for boys, who hoped to be warriors by-and-bye. Remembering these words of his father’s, little Mou-Setsé pressed back the tears from his hot eyelids, and endeavoured to wear an indifferent face. He could not quite smile – his heart was too heavy for smiles – but no one saw the glistening of a tear on his dark cheek. Occupied with these bitter and sad thoughts, he could scarcely be expected to notice the beautiful scenery through which the river on which the canoe glided passed. His father, his mother, his brothers, his sister, he was torn from them all; he did not know what had become of them; he might never hope to see them again; he might never learn their fate; their suffering might be even greater than his own. Poor little boy! and he knew of no God to comfort him, and had never heard of any hope beyond this world.
At last the canoe reached a place called Ikho. Little Mou-Setsé was again sold, and this time was sent to the fold, or the spot where purchased slaves are kept till there is an opportunity to send them off in vessels to other countries.
Mou-Setsé found life in the fold very dreadful. He had a coarse rope put around his neck, the ends of which were fastened round the necks of other slaves, so that a long row of them were secured together, and one could not move without dragging all the others with him. The boys were thus roped together, and the men chained in fifties.
In this terrible place – treated with cruelty, cold, half-naked – Mou-Setsé spent two months.
But a greater evil was to come. This poor little African boy was to pass through a black and heavy cloud into God’s glorious light.
For let no one suppose that God had forgotten this little child whom He had made. Every hair of that little woolly head was numbered by God; every sigh he sighed, every groan he uttered, was heard and regarded by that great and good God, who loved him just as well with his black skin as He loved the fairest and most lovely English child.
But Mou-Setsé had a dreadful time before him, for God teaches His lessons in the storm as well as the sunshine.
This suffering was to take place on board the Portuguese slave-ship to which he was shortly removed. No one can understand who has not witnessed it the miseries of a slave vessel. The negroes are placed on their backs, or fixed in a sitting position, on ranges of shelves, one above the other, and in dark, close places, where hardly any air and no light are allowed to enter.
Here they are chained so close together that the space which each is allowed is scarcely so much as he would have in his coffin. Thus they lie for weeks and months, sometimes brought up on deck to jump about in their chains for exercise, exposed to sea-sickness, disease, and to the rubbing of the rough boards on their naked bodies. Many die, and those who live are, on landing, wretched