The Palm-wine Drinkard Page 5

  As that light was shining on us, we at once began to feel heat as if we had bathed with water, even my wife fainted of this heat. But I was praying to God by that time not to let this ‘Spirit of Prey’ close his eyes, because if he closed them, no more, we had perished there. But God is so good he did not remember to close his eyes by that time, and I myself was feeling the heat of his eyes too much and also I nearly fainted with suffocation. Then I saw a buffalo which was passing that way at that time, then this ‘Spirit of Prey’ closed his eyes as usual and the buffalo died and dragged itself to him, after that he began to eat it. So by that time I got a chance to escape from him, but when I remembered that my wife had fainted then I looked around the place where we sat and saw a tree with many branches, then I climbed it with my wife and left our loads at the foot of that tree. To my surprise, he had eaten off the dead body of the buffalo within four minutes and at once he pointed the flood-light of his eyes towards the place where we sat before we climbed the tree; he found nothing there but our loads. So when he directed the flood-light of his eyes to the loads, the loads dragged themselves to him but when he loosened the loads, he found nothing edible there. After that, he waited for us till the day was nearly breaking and when he saw that he could not get us any more, then he went away.

  As I was treating my wife throughout that night, she was very well before early in the morning. Then we got down from the tree and packed our loads and we started our journey at once. Before 5 p.m. we had left that bush behind. That was how we were saved from the ‘Spirit of Prey’ etc.

  We started our journey in another bush with new creatures, this bush was smaller than that one which we had passed behind and it was also a various bush, because there we met many houses which had been ruined for hundreds of years and all the properties of those who had left there remained as if they were using them every day; there we saw an image which sat down on a flat stone, it had two long breasts with deep eyes, it was very ugly and terrible to see. After that we went further in this ruined town and saw another image with a full basket of colas on its front, then I took out one of the colas, but to our surprise, at the same time that I took it, we heard a voice of somebody suddenly, which said: – DON’T TAKE IT! LEAVE IT THERE! but I did not listen to the voice that we heard. Immediately I had taken the cola, we kept going, and again to our surprise, there we saw a man who was walking towards his back or backwards, his both eyes were on his knees, his both arms were at his both thighs, these both arms were longer than his feet and both could reach the topmost of any tree; and he held a long whip too. He was chasing us as we were going on hastily with that whip, so by that time, we started to run for our life, but he was chasing us to and fro in that bush for two hours; he wanted to flog us with that whip. But as we were running away from this creature, we entered into a wide road unexpectedly, as we entered the road, he got back from us at once, although we could not say, whether he was bound to trek on that road.

  When we reached this road, we waited for thirty minutes; perhaps we might see somebody pass, because we did not know to which side of the two to travel, again the road might not be there at all. But though we waited for 30 minutes there, nobody passed, even a fly did not fly on it.

  As the road was very clean, we noticed that a foot mark could not be traced, then we believed that it was the road which led to the – ‘UNRETURNABLE-HEAVEN’S TOWN’ the town in which human-beings or other creatures were bound to enter; if anybody entered it, no doubt he or she would not return again, because the inhabitants of the town were very bad, cruel and merciless.

  ∨ The Palm-wine Drinkard ∧

  18

  On our way to the unreturnable-heaven’s town

  Now we followed this road from the north side and we were very glad to be travelling on it, but still no trace of foot mark or of anybody met on the way. As we travelled along it from two o’clock till seven o’clock in the evening without reaching a town or the end, then we stopped at the roadside and made a fire there; we cooked our food and ate it there and slept there as well, but nothing happened to us throughout the night. When it was dawn we woke up and cooked our food and ate it.

  After that we started our journey, but although we had travelled from that morning till 4 o’clock in the evening, yet we did not see or meet anybody on this road, then we were quite sure that it was ‘Unreturnable-Heaven’s town’ road, so we did not go further; we stopped and slept there till the morning. Very early in the morning, we woke and prepared our food and ate it, after that, we thought to go on a little bit before we should leave the road.

  But as we were going on and when it was time that we wanted to branch to our left, to continue the journey inside another bush as usual, we were unable to branch or to stop, or to go back, we were only moving on the road towards the town. We tried all our best to stop ourselves but all were in vain.

  How could we stop now was the question that we asked ourselves, because we were approaching the town. Then I remembered one of my juju which had escaped me and I performed it to stop us, but instead of that, we started to move faster than before. When there remained one quarter of a mile to reach the town, we came to a large gate which crossed the road, it was closed then. When we reached the gate, then we could stop, but we could not move to front or back, We stood before this gate for about 3 hours before it opened itself, then we moved to the town unexpectedly and we did not know who was pushing us. When we entered this town we saw creatures that we had never seen in our life and I could not describe the whole of them here, but however, I should tell some of their stories which went thus: – This town was very big and full of unknown creatures, both adults and children were very cruel to human-beings, and yet they were looking for ways of making their cruelties even worse; as soon as we entered their town, six of them held us firmly and the rest were beating us and also their children were stoning us repeatedly.

  These unknown creatures were doing everything incorrectly, because there we saw that if one of them wanted to climb a tree, he would climb the ladder first before leaning it against that tree; and there was a flat land near their town but they built their houses on the side of a steep hill, so all the houses bent downwards as if they were going to fall, and their children were always rolling down from these houses, but their parents did not care about that; the whole of them did not wash their bodies at all, but washed their domestic animals; they wrapped themselves with a kind of leaves as their clothes, but had costly clothes for their domestic animals, and cut their domestic animals’ finger nails, but kept their own uncut for one hundred years; even there we saw many of them sleeping on the roofs of their houses and they said that they could not use the houses that they built with their hands except to sleep on them.

  Their town was surrounded with a thick and tall wall. If any earthly person mistakenly entered their town, they would catch him or her and begin to cut the flesh of his or her body into pieces while still alive, sometimes they would stab a person’s eyes with a pointed knife and leave it there until that person would die of much pain. As six of them held us firmly, they were taking us to their king, but as we were taken along, the rest and their children were beating and stoning us. But as we wanted to enter the palace of their king, there we met uncountable of them at the gate of their king’s palace and waiting for to beat. When we entered the palace, they handed us to the king’s attendants. After the attendants took us to the king, but as we were inside the palace, thousands of them were waiting for us at the gate of the palace, some of them held clubs, knives, cutlasses and other fighting weapons and all their children held stones.

  The questions that their king asked us went thus: – From where were you coming? I replied that we were coming from the earth. He asked again how did we manage to reach their town? I replied that it was their road brought us to the town and we did not want, to come there at all. After that he asked us where were we going to? Then I replied that we were going to my palm-wine tapster’s town who had died in my town sometime
ago. As I had said already that these unknown creatures were very cruel to anybody that mistakenly entered their town, as I answered all the questions, he repeated the nameoftheirtown for us again – “Unreturnable-Heaven’s town.” He said: – a town in which are only enemies of God living, only cruel, greedy and merciless creatures. After he said so, he commanded his attendants to clear all the hair from our heads, but when the attendants and the people at the gate heard that from their king, they jumped up with gladness and shouted. God is so good, that the attendants did not take us to the outside of the palace before they started to shave our heads as the king ordered them, otherwise we would be torn into pieces by the people waiting for us at the gate of the palace.

  Then the king gave them flat stones to use as razor blades, and as the attendants were clearing the hair with the flat stones, the flat stones were unable to clear the hair as razor blades would and only hurt every part of our heads. After they had tried all their efforts and failed, then the king gave them pieces of broken bottle to use, when they got that, it cleared some of the hair by force, and blood did not allow them to see the rest of our hair again. But before they started to shave off the hair, they had tied us with strong ropes to one of the pillars of that palace. After they had cleared some of the hair, they left us there unloosened and went to grind pepper, after a while, they brought the pepper and rubbed our heads with it, then they lighted a thick rag with fire and tied it on the centre of our heads so that it nearly touched our heads. By that time, we did not know whether we were still alive or dead, although we could not defend our heads, because both our hands and bodies were tied to that pillar. When it was about half an hour since they had hung the fire near our heads, they took it away and started to scrape our heads again with a big snail’s shell, so by that time, every part of the heads was bleeding; but before that time all the people that were waiting for us at the gate had returned to their houses, tired of long waiting.

  After that, they took us to a wide field which was in the full heat of the sun, there were no trees or shadow near there and it was cleared as a football field; it was near the town. Then they dug two pits or holes side by side, in size of which would reach the jaw of a person, in the centre of the field. After that they put me into one and my wife into the second and replaced the earth that they had dug out and pressed it hard in such a way that we could hardly breathe. Then they put food near our mouths, but we were unable to touch or eat it; they knew that we were very hungry by that time. And after that, the whole of them cut whips and began to flog our heads, but we had no hands to defend our heads. At last they brought an eagle before us to take out our eyes with its beak, but the eagle was simply looking at our eyes, it did no harm to us. Then these people went back to their houses and left the eagle there with us. But as I had tamed such a bird in my town before I left there, so this one did not harm us at all and we remained in these holes from three o’clock p.m. till morning and at about 9 o’clock of that morning the sun came and shone severely on us; when it was 10 o’clock, these people came again and made a big fire around us and flogged us for some minutes, then they went away. But when the fire was about to quench, their children came with whips and stones then they began to whip and stone our heads; when they left that, they began to climb on our heads and jump from one to the second; after that they started to spit, make urine and pass excreta on our heads; but when that eagle saw that they wanted to nail our heads, then it drove all of them away from the field with its beak. But before that people (adults) left, they scheduled the time that they would come and pay us the last visit for 5 o’clock in the evening of the second day that we were in those holes. God is so good, when it was 5 o’clock p.m., a heavy rain came and it rained till a late hour in the night and it disappointed them from coming to pay the last visit.

  As it rained heavily, when it was one o’clock in the night, the holes became soft, so when that eagle saw us trying to get out of the holes, it came nearer and began to scratch the hole in which I was, but as the holes were very deep, it could not scratch it out as quickly as it wanted to. But when I shook my body to left and right, then I got out and ran to my wife and pulled her out of her own too. Then we hastily left that field and went to the main gate of the town, but unluckily, we found it closed and the town was entirely surrounded by a thick and tall wall, so we hid ourselves under a bush which had not been cleared for long time and was near the wall. When the day broke the people came to the field and found nothing there; after that they began to search for us and when they reached the bush in which we hid ourselves, they were smashing it together with us, so when they could not trace us out they thought that we had left their town.

  As the sun of that town was very hot, every place dried early; when it was about two o’clock in the midnight, and when the whole of them slept, then we went into the town cautiously and took some fire from their fire which was not yet quenched. All their houses were thatched with grasses and also it was in the dry season, as again the houses touched each other, then we lighted some of the houses with the fire; it caught fire at once and before they could wake up, all the houses had burnt into ashes and about ninety per cent of them also burnt with the houses and none of their children were saved. Then the rest of them that were saved, stole away that night.

  When it was dawn, then we went to the town and found nobody there, so we took one of their sheep and killed it, then roasted it, after that, we ate as much of it as we could and packed the rest and took one of their axes and left the town empty, so when we reached the thick wall, I cut a part of it like a window and passed out through that place.

  That was how we were saved from the Unknown creatures of the ‘Unreturnable-Heaven’s town’. After we had left that town very far away and believed that we were freed from the unknown creatures, then we stopped and built a small temporary house inside the bush in which we were travelling along, it was built in form of an upstairs and thatched with grasses, then I surrounded it with sticks as fence, so that it might keep us from the animals etc. Then I began to treat my wife there. In the daytime, I would go around the bush, I should kill bush animals, after that I should pick edible fruits and we were feeding on them as food. When we completed the period of three months there for treatment, my wife was very well, but as I was roaming about in that bush in search of animals, there I discovered an old cutlass which had had its wooden handle eaten off by insects, then I took it and coiled it round with the string of a palm-tree, then I sharpened it on a hard ground, because there was no stone, and cut a strong and slender stick and then bent it in form of a bow and sharpened many small sticks as arrows, so I was defending ourselves with it. But after we had completed the period of five months and some days in that house, we thought that to go back to the town of my wife’s father was dangerous, because of various punishments, and we could not trace out the right way on which we travelled from that place again. To go back was harder and to go further was the hardest, so at last we made up our mind and started to go forward. In case of emergency, I took the bow and arrows with the cutlass with us, but we had no other load more than that, because our loads had been taken from us in the town of ‘Unreturnable-Heaven’s’, and of course we had burnt our loads together with their houses. Then we started our journey very early in the morning, but it was a very dark day which seemed as if rain was coming heavily. After we had travelled about seven miles from that house which we left, then we stopped and ate some of the roasted meat which we took along with us. After that we started to travel again, but we did not travel more than a mile in that bush before we reached a large river which crossed our way to pass when we reached there, we could not enter it, because it was very deep as we were looking at it and noticing that there was no canoe or other thing with which to cross it. When we had stopped there for a few minutes, we travelled to our right along the bank of this river as perhaps we might reach the end of it, but we travelled more than four miles without seeing the end at all. Then we turned back and travelled to
our left again. When we had travelled about six miles away without seeing the end, then we stopped to think what we could do to cross the river. But at that moment we thought to go further along the bank perhaps we could reach the end or a safe place to rest or sleep at night. As we were going further, we did not travel more than one third of a mile on this river-bank, before we saw a big tree which was about one thousand and fifty feet in length and about two hundred feet in diameter. This tree was almost white as if it was painted every day with white paint with all its leaves and also branches. As we were about forty yards away from it, there we noticed that somebody peeped out and was focusing us as if a photographer was focusing somebody. So, at the same time we saw him focusing us like that, we started to run to our left, but he turned to that place too, and we turned to our right again, and he did so, and still focusing us like that and we did not see who was focusing us, but only that tree which was turning as we were doing. After we had seen this terrible tree which was focusing us, then we said that we should not wait for this again, then we were running away for our life at once. But immediately we were running away from this tree, we heard a terrible voice suddenly as if many persons talked into a big tank, then we looked at our back and there we saw two large hands which came out from the tree and made a sign of ‘STOP,” but directly we saw him saying so, we did not stop at all, after that he said again – “STOP-THERE AND COME-HERE’ but still, we did not go to him as he said. He told us again with another curious and larger voice to stop, but that time we stopped and looked at our back.