160 VISITS TO MADAGASCAK. chap. vi. 



channels through which accusations against them had come 

 to the authorities during the long period of their proscrip- 

 tion. Sometimes it was by the subordinates of those in 

 authority who were ordered to track their steps and to listen 

 or spy around their dwellings ; sometimes by those to whom, 

 impelled by the yearnings of love to their souls, they had 

 declared the foundation of their own hopes; sometimes by 

 their nearest relatives. The father had sometimes accused 

 his child. Indictments against some had been preferred by 

 those to whom the same mother had given birth, and with 

 whom they would otherwise have been laid, after death, side 

 by side in the same tomb. Even the slaves who for years 

 had served in their families, and had thus become acquainted 

 with all their habits, had been admitted as accusers and 

 witnesses against them. Yet none of these had laid to their 

 charge anything but their religion. 



On the other hand, much had been by the same means 

 adduced in their favour. They did not deny that they had 

 prayed, but freely and frankly, and no one impeached their 

 testimony, declared that they had prayed for their sovereign 

 and her officers, for the good of the kingdom, and the pros- 

 perity and happiness of the people. No contrary evidence 

 was ever brought forward, and even their judges, after listen- 

 ing to the items of accusation against them, have been known 

 to declare that there was no harm in that ; but the reading 

 of the book and the praying had been prohibited, and slavery, 

 torture, or death was the penalty of disregarding such pro- 

 hibition. The book had taught them to fear Grod and honour 

 the king, and prayer had been the means of enabling them to 

 do both, to meet the claims of the present life, and yet to 

 cherish the hope of the life which is to come. As one of 

 their own number simply yet forcibly expressed it, when, 

 having been condemned to die on account of his faith, a 

 message was brought in the name of the sovereign to the 



