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For a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the Christians. But the wily Arabs whispered in his ear that the white men were still trying to "eat up" his country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and fear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi said to him: "There is a great white man coming from the rising sun. Behind him will come thousands of white soldiers."
Mackay and the other white men are making ready to bring thousands of white soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill you." So M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. Then, because the King was afraid to attack him, he began to lay plots against the boys. One morning Mackay started out from his house with five or six boys and the crew of his boat to march down to the lake.
"We are travelling to the port with the permission of King M'wanga and the Katikiro." "You are a liar!" replied Mujasi. Mujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the missionaries, dragged them to their feet and held the muzzles of their guns within a few inches of their chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched back to the capital.
"Send at once and kill him," cried the demented M'wanga. A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not contain himself, but broke out, "Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going to kill a white man? Your father did not do so." But the soldiers went out, travelled east along the paths till they met the great Bishop Hannington being carried in a litter, stricken with fever.
"King M'tesa is dead!" the cry went out through all the land. The people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness till the new king was selected by the chiefs from the sons of the dead ruler. At last a great cheer went up from the Palace. "M'wanga has eaten Uganda!" they shouted. By this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son of M'tesa only eighteen years old had been made King.
A flash of lightning smote the King's house and it flamed up and burned to ashes. Then King M'wanga seemed to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself. "Take, seize, burn the Christians," he cried.
He died when quite young; homeless, after a life in constant danger from fever and from a half-mad tyrant king his Christian disciples having been burned. Was it worth while? To-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo Kagwa, who as a boy was kicked and beaten and stamped upon by King M'wanga for being a Christian; and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, is a Christian.
We have no space in which to detail the rivalries of French and British missionaries and agents at the Court of King M'tesa and his successor M'wanga, or the futile attempt of Dr. Peters to thrust in German influence.
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