WITH M. BONI^^AT IN ABANKORO. 
57 
CHAPTER XI 
WITH M. EONNAT IN ABANKOKO. 
On the 27th of August, a white man, accompanied by 
two soldiers, suddenly entered our yard. He was sun- 
burnt and in rags. He greeted us in French, and we 
were indeed pleased to hear his sympathising words, 
" Madame, je vous plains !" 
We soon learnt that our companion was a merchant 
from Ho, where he had been taken prisoner by the 
Ashantees, after the missionaries Hornberger and Miiller 
had escaped. His captors beheaded his two mulatto 
assistants, who had been educated in Europe, then seized, 
stripped, and tied him to a tree, when he was kept all 
night, and witnessed the plundering and burning of the 
station, saw the Ashantees tear the books, chop up the 
harmonium, and throw away the coffee and flour. When 
the bell fell from the burning chapel, they lifted and 
brought it into the camp of Nantshi, Adu Bofo's first 
oflicer, and thither M. Bonnat was also taken. 
The people of Ho made an attempt to recover their town, 
which so enraged the Ashantees that like angry children, 
they destroyed all the mango and palm groves in the 
neighbourhood. M. Bonnat at first expected to proceed 
direct to Ashantee, but his attendants decided to settle 
near us, and when they noticed Ageana's treatment of us 
the}'- began to imitate, and at last even excelled him, so 
that our poor friend would have been really starved had 
we not shared our pittance with him. 
