Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/154

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN with patience the weary days of waiting. She had nothing to read, nothing to do, very often no one to talk to, and she would probably have fallen into a state of nervous melancholy had not Edna persuaded her to devote an hour or two each day to missionary work with Mok and Cheditafa. This Mrs. Cliif cheerfully undertook. She was a conscientious woman, and her methods of teaching were peculiar. She had an earnest desire to do the greatest amount of good with these poor, ignorant negroes, but, at the same time, she did not wish to do injury to any one else. The conviction forced itself upon her that if she absolutely converted Cheditafa from the errors of his native religion, she might in some way invalidate the marriage ceremony which he had performed.

"If he should truly come to believe," she said to herself, "that he had no right to marry the captain and Edna, his conscience might make him go back on the whole business, and everything that we have done would be undone. I don't want him to remain a heathen any longer than it can possibly be helped, but I must be careful not to set his priesthood entirely aside until Edna's position is fixed and settled. When the captain comes back, and we all get home, they must be married regularly; but if he never comes back, then I must try to make Cheditafa understand that the marriage is just as binding as any other kind, and that any change of religious opinion that he may undergo will have no effect upon it."

Accordingly, while she confined her religious teachings to very general principles, her moral teachings were founded upon the strictest code, and included cleanliness and all the household virtues, not 142