Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/290

276 excursions into the interior. On one occasion he was some twelve days march from the coast, where he found in a village a Mahometan missionary, who while endeavoring to turn the people to Islam, thought it not inconsistent with his sacred character to purchase a slave! He had bought a poor boy, whose feet, for fear of his running away, he had made fast in the stocks. Such a sight was enough to move a heart of stone, and deeply touched the missionary. But what could he do? He had no money to buy the poor child's freedom. Not long before this the Bible — which had been translated into Arabic by Dr. Van Dyck — had been printed at the press in Beirut, and thirty copies had been sent to Western Africa. One he had now with him. The sight of this excited the ardent desire of the apostle of Islam. Books are not common in that part of the world, but here was a volume in his own mother tongue. What would he not give to possess it! He offered the missionary any price, if he could but obtain one. This conversation took place in the presence of one of the African kings. Mr. Schapira listened to the earnest request, and finally made answer: "So you would give anything for a copy of the Arabic Bible? Well, you shall have it: it is yours. Now give me that boy!" "Oh — oh — oh! But — but — but!" exclaimed the Moslem. This was a turn of affairs which he did not expect, and he was now as anxious to recede from his rash offer as he had been to make it. But my friend held him to his agreement, asking if he intended to be put to shame before the king by breaking his word? The upshot of it all was that the Moslem priest took the Bible, and gave up the boy, whom Mr. Schapira forthwith despatched down to the coast, to be put into the missionary school at Sierra Leone, where (though long a sufferer from the torture inflicted upon him by having his feet made fast in the stocks) he found under the English