'Yaa!' roared Umuofia.
'Umuofia kwenu!' he bellowed again, and again and again, facing a new
direction each time. An d the crowd answered, 'Yaa!'
There was immediate silence as though cold water had been poured on a
roaring flame.
Okika sprang to his feet and also saluted his clansmen four times. The n he
began to speak:
'You all know why we are here, when we ought to be building our barns or
mending our huts, when we should be putting our compounds in order. My
father used to say to me: 'Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight,
then know that something is after its life.' Whe n I saw you all pouring into
this meeting from all the quarters of our clan so early in the morning, I knew
3. 'Wh o surpasses [God]?' (a rhetorical question).
.
TH INGS FALL APART, PART 3 / 2707
that something was after our life.' He paused for a brief moment and then began again:
'All our gods are weeping. Idemili is weeping, Ogwugwu is weeping, Agbala is weeping, and all the others. Ou r dead fathers are weeping because of the shameful sacrilege they are suffering and the abomination we have all seen with our eyes.' He stopped again to steady his trembling voice.
'This is a great gathering. No clan can boast of greater numbers or greater valour. But are we all here? I ask you: Are all the sons of Umuofia with us here?' A deep murmu r swept through the crowd.
'They are not,' he said. 'They have broken the clan and gone their several ways. We who are here this morning have remained true to our fathers, but our brothers have deserted us and joined a stranger to soil their fatherland. If we fight the stranger we shall hit our brothers and perhaps shed the blood of a clansman. But we must do it. Ou r fathers never dreamt of such a thing, they never killed their brothers. But a white ma n never came to them. So we must do what our fathers would never have done. Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: 'Men have learnt to shoot without missing their mark and I have learnt to fly without perching on a twig.' We must root out this evil. An d if our brothers take the side of evil we must root them out too. And we must do it now. We must bale this water now that it is only ankle-deep. . . .'
At this point there was a sudden stir in the crowd and every eye was turned in one direction. There was a sharp bend in the road that led from the market place to the white man's court, and to the stream beyond it. An d so no one had seen the approach of the five court messengers until they had come round the bend, a few paces from the edge of the crowd. Okonkwo was sitting at the edge.
He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw who it was. He confronted the head messenger, trembling with hate, unable to utter a word. Th e ma n was fearless and stood his ground, his four men lined up behind him.
In that brief moment the world seemed to stand still, waiting. There was
utter silence. The men of Umuofia were merged into the mute backcloth of
trees and giant creepers, waiting.
The spell was broken by the head messenger. 'Let me pass!' he ordered.
'What do you want here?'
'The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting
to stop.'
In a flash Okonkwo drew his matchet. The messenger crouched to avoid
the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo's matchet descended twice and the man's
head lay beside his uniformed body.
The waiting backcloth jumped into tumultuous life and the meeting was
stopped. Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia
would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers
escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in
that tumult. He heard voices asking: 'Wh y did he do it?'
He wiped his matchet on the sand and went away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Whe n the District Commissioner arrived at Okonkwo's compound at the head of an armed band of soldiers and court messengers he found a small
.
2708 / CHINUA ACHEBE
crowd of me n sitting wearily in the obi. He commanded them to come outside,
