The Fugitives by Robert Michael Ballantyne (hardest books to read TXT) 📖

the procession.

Mats were thrust into the mouths of the suspended victims to prevent them from speaking, but some of them managed to free their mouths and prayed aloud, while others sang hymns or addressed the crowd. Thus they passed along the road that led to the Place of Hurling Down.

This was a tremendous precipice of granite, 150 feet high. Thither the multitude streamed--some influenced by hatred of the Christians, some by deep sympathy with them, but the majority, doubtless, prompted by mere excitement and curiosity. And there they crowded as near as they dared venture to the edge of the precipice and gazed into the awful gulf.

Slowly the procession moved, as if to prolong the agony of the martyrs. Suddenly a young man pushed through the crowd, advanced to the side of Ramatoa, and grasped one of her hands, exclaiming in a loud voice, "Dearest! I will go with you and stay by you to the end."

For a moment the calm serenity that had settled on the girl's fine countenance was disturbed.

"Mamba!" she said, "this is not wise. You cannot save me. It is God's will that I should now glorify the dear name of Jesus by laying down my life. But you are not yet condemned, and your mother needs your help."

"Full well do I know that," returned the youth, fervently. "Were it not for my dear mother's love and claim on me, I would now have gone with you to heaven. As it is, I will stay by you, dear one, to the end."

"Thank you, dear friend," returned the girl, earnestly. "I think it will not be long till we meet where there are no more sufferings or tears."

Soon the procession reached the brow of the terrible cliff. Here the martyrs were ranged in such a way that, while they were cast over one by one, the rest could see their companions fall.

The first to perish was the poet Razafil. After the Queen's messenger had pronounced the sentence of each, the poor man was seized and thrown violently on the ground. A rope was then fastened round his waist, and he was asked if he would cease to pray in the name of Jesus.

"Cease to pray to Jesus!" he exclaimed, while the fire of enthusiasm gleamed in his eyes--"to Jesus who saved my Raniva, and who holds out His blessed hands to me--even me--to take me to Himself? _Never_!"

Razafil was instantly slung over the precipice, and held suspended there in the hope that the awful nature of his impending fate might cause his courage to fail, while the executioner knelt, knife in hand, ready to cut the rope.

"Once more, and for the last time," said the officer in command, "will you cease to pray?"

The answer was an emphatic "No!"

Next moment Razafil went shooting down headlong into the abyss. There was a projecting ledge of rock about fifty feet down the precipice. On this the body of the martyr struck, and, bounding off into space, reached the bottom with incredible violence, a shattered and mangled heap.

With trembling hearts and straining gaze the other victims watched the descent. It seemed to be more than human nature could endure to voluntarily face such a fate when a word would deliver them. So thought many of the spectators, and they were right; mere human nature could not have endured it, but these Christians were strengthened in a way that the ungodly will neither believe nor understand. One by one they were led to the edge of the cliff, suspended over the edge, and had the testing-question put to them, and, one by one, the answer was a decisive "No!"

But where was the tyrant Queen while this scene of butchery was being enacted? In her chamber in the palace--comparatively, yet not altogether, regardless of the matter.

Her son Rakota stood beside her. Our friend the Secretary stood at the door.

"Mother," said the Prince, quietly, "they are being hurled down now--and little Ra-Ruth is among them."

The Queen looked up, startled. "No, no!" she said, hesitatingly. "Ra-Ruth must not--but--but--I must not seem to my people to be weak-- yet I would save her."

Rakota gave a gentle nod to the Secretary, who instantly vanished. He reached the place of execution only just in time. The rope was already round the girl's slender waist, and the testing-question had been put-- but her timidity had flown, and was replaced by a calm, almost angelic, expression, as she gazed up to Heaven, clasped her hands, and, with a flush of enthusiasm, exclaimed--

"No--Jesus--no, I will _never_ cease to worship Thee!"

A murmur of mingled surprise and pity broke from the crowd. At that moment the Secretary came forward.

"The Queen," he said, "has sent me to ask you, Ra-Ruth, whether you will not worship our gods and save your life."

"No," answered the girl, firmly. "I have been weak--a coward--but now God has sent me strength by His own Holy Spirit, and my fixed determination is to go this day with my dear brothers and sisters to Heaven."

"You are a fool! You are _mad_!" exclaimed an officer standing by, as he struck her on the head.

"Yes, she is _mad_," said the Secretary to the officer in command. "Send a messenger to tell the Queen that Ra-Ruth has lost her reason. Meanwhile, let her be taken away and guarded well till the Queen's pleasure regarding her is known."

But although this poor girl was thus snatched from death at the last moment, no mercy was extended to the others. All were thrown over the cliff and dashed to pieces at that time except Ramatoa. When the question was put to her, last of all, she, as might have been expected, was not less firm in her reply than her companions; but, instead of being thrown over, she was informed that as it was not allowable to shed the blood of one of noble birth she was to be burnt alive!

At this dreadful announcement she turned paler than before, but did not flinch. At the same moment poor Mamba lost control of himself. He sprang to her side, put an arm round her waist, and shouted--

"This shall not be! I, too, am a praying man. Ye shall not touch her!"

He glared fiercely round, and, for a moment, the soldiers did not dare to approach him, although he was totally unarmed. But they sprang on him from behind, and he was quickly overpowered by numbers. At the command of their officer, they tore him from Ramatoa, carried him to the cliff, and hurled him over. His head struck the ledge, and his brains were dashed out there. Next moment he lay dead among the rocks at the bottom.

This awful sight Ramatoa was spared, for, at the same instant, they had dragged her away to the spot where a pile of wood had been prepared for herself. Four stakes were fixed in the midst of the pile, as three other Christian nobles were to be burnt along with her, one of whom was a lady. While Ramatoa watched the preparations for her death, her fellow-sufferers arrived--singing, as they walked, a hymn which begins with, "When our hearts are troubled," and ends with, "Then remember us." Ramatoa raised her voice and joined them. There was no wavering or shrinking from the fiery ordeal. When all was ready the martyrs quietly suffered themselves to be bound to the stakes, and, strange to say, when the flames roared around them, the song of praise still went on, and the voices of praise and prayer did not cease until they had culminated in glad shouts of praise and victory before the throne of God!

We write facts just now, reader, not fiction! Men talk of the cruelty of devils! Assuredly there is not a devil in or out of hell who can sink to lower depths of cruelty than fallen man will sink to when left to the unrestrained influence of that hateful thing--_sin_--from which Jesus Christ came to deliver us, blessed be _His_ name!

It is said that while these four martyrs were being fastened to the stakes, an immense triple-arched rainbow stretched across the heavens, one end of which appeared to rest upon them, and that rain fell in torrents. This so terrified many of the spectators, that they fled in consternation from the scene.

But the cup of iniquity was not yet filled up. While the martyrs were still in the fire, and praying, "O Lord, receive our spirits, and lay not this sin to their charge," a shouting yelling band arrived, dragging after them the corpses of the men and women who had perished at the Place of Hurling Down. These were tossed upon the pile to serve as fuel to the fire. The poor unrecognisable remains of Mamba were among them; and thus, even in their death, he and Ramatoa were not divided!

At this time of terrible suffering and trial--as in the previous persecutions during the reign of this tyrant queen--hundreds of Christians willingly submitted to the loss of position, wealth, and liberty for the sake of Jesus, besides those who witnessed a good confession, and sealed their testimony with their blood. Thirty-seven native preachers, with their wives and families, were consigned to a life of slavery. More than a hundred men and women were flogged and sentenced to work in chains during their lives. Some were heavily fined, and many among the "great and noble" were stripped of honours and titles, reduced to the ranks, and forced to labour at the hardest and most menial occupation.

Among these last was Prince Ramonja, who had been the means of sheltering, secreting, and saving many Christians. Fortunately Prince Rakota retained his influence over his mother, and his power to do good--a circumstance for which our three adventurers had ultimately reason to thank God, though, for a considerable time after that, they remained in prison, in company with their friends Ravonino, Voalavo, Laihova, and others.

These last were not delivered from their chains, but lived in hourly expectation of being led out to execution. After Ra-Ruth's removal, Laihova was at first overwhelmed with despair, but when a friendly jailor informed him of her having been spared under the supposition that she was insane, hope revived a little, though he could not help seeing that the prospect ahead was still very black.

Another prisoner who was inconsolable was poor Reni-Mamba. From the time that she was told of her son's fate she seemed to sink into a state of quiet imbecility, from which no efforts of her friends could rouse her. She did not murmur or complain. She simply sat silent and callous to everything around her. She, Rafaravavy, Sarah, and the other females, were removed to another prison, and for a long time their male friends could learn nothing as to their fate.

"It is this prolonged uncertainty that's so hard to bear," remarked Ravonino to Mark one day, lifting his hands high above his head, and letting them fall, with the clanking chains, into his lap.

"True, true," replied the youth, shortly--for confinement was beginning to tell unfavourably on himself.

"Das w'ere it is," remarked Ebony, endeavouring to brighten up a little, but with only moderate success, "it's sottin still