142 MISSIONARY LIFE m ASH AN TEE, 
liumours. The councillors were beside themselves with 
excitement, and the people on the market place gathered 
up their wares, and fled trembling into their houses; 
nothing but absolute necessity made any of them leave 
their homes that night. 
It was just about this time that I one day found a 
pair of my shoes offered for sale in the market, and gladly 
b)ought them. Soon after, one of the king's sons appeared 
in a dress belonging to my wife. 
I had now the joy of helping a poor starving woman I 
saw lying in the market place, seeming to have but an 
liour to live. Accustomed as I was to horrors, so sorrow- 
ful a sight I had never beheld. Two of our boys brought 
ber with difficulty into our house, where in a few days she 
recovered sufficiently to walk with a stick. Her mistress 
bad sent her away sick, with the words, "Go into the 
bush and die." A musselman who spoke her language, 
told us she was a Fula, which accounted for her not hav- 
ing been killed, as mohammedan Fulas are not put to 
death by the Ashantees. A fortnight later she died, 
thankful for our kindness. 
Soon afterwards, another woman in fetters fled to us for 
protection, whom we succeeded in getting set at liberty, 
and three days later, a man rushed breathless into Kiihne's 
room, trying to hide himself under the bed. As soon as 
the poor fellow was sufficiently recovered to speak, he told 
us that six weeks before he had used the oath of the king, 
bad been found guilty, and placed in the stocks. After 
many fruitless efforts, he had succeeded in extricating his 
emaciated hand, and had run to us for protection. 
The earlier missionaries had been allowed the privi- 
* We heard soon after, that the cause of the king's anger had been 
some tricks which his chiefs had played him, in regard to the 
succession of the chieftainship of Nouta. In the night, an influential 
man of that town, and a linguist of Coomassie, were killed. 
