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said Akueke.
    Matefi said: ‘If this is medicine, may it lose its potency.’
    Ezeulu let the spear fall from his hand. ‘Where is Oduche?’ he asked. No one answered. ‘I said where is Oduche?’ His voice was terrible.
    Nwafo said he had gone to church. The sacred python now raised its head above the edge of the box and began to move in its dignified and unhurried way.
    ‘Today I shall kill the boy with my own hands,’ said Ezeulu as he picked up the matchet which Obika had brought at first.
    ‘May the Great Deity forbid such a thing,’ said Anosi.
    ‘I have said it.’
    Oduche’s mother began to cry, and the other women joined her. Ezeulu walked slowly back to his obi with the matchet. The royal python slid away into the bush.
    ‘What is the profit of crying?’ Anosi asked Ugoye. ‘Won’t you find where your son is and tell him not to return home today?’
    ‘He has spoken the truth, Ugoye,’ said Matefi. ‘Send him away to your kinsmen. We are fortunate the python is not dead.’
    ‘You are indeed fortunate,’ said Anosi to himself as he continued on his way to Umunneora to buy seed-yams from his friend. ‘I have already said that what this new religion will bring to Umuaro wears a hat on its head.’ As he went he stopped and told anyone he met what Ezeulu’s son had done. Before midday the story had reached the ears of Ezidemili whose deity, Idemili, owned the royal python.
    It was five years since Ezeulu promised the white man that he would send one of his sons to church. But it was only two years ago that he fulfilled the promise. He wanted to satisfy himself that the white man had not come for a short visit but to build a house and live.
    At first Oduche did not want to go to church. But Ezeulu called him to his obi and spoke to him as a man would speak to his best friend and the boy went forth with pride in his heart. He had never heard his father speak to anyone as an equal.
    ‘The world is changing,’ he had told him. ‘I do not like it. But I am like the bird Eneke-nti-oba. When his friends asked him why he was always on the wing he replied: “Men of today have learnt to shoot without missing and so I have learnt to fly without perching.” I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eye there. If there is nothing in it you will come back. But if there is something there you will bring home my share. The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place. My spirit tells me that those who do not befriend the white man today will be saying had we known tomorrow.’
    Oduche’s mother, Ugoye, was not happy that her son should be chosen for sacrifice to the white man. She tried to reason with her husband, but he was impatient with her.
    ‘How does it concern you what I do with my sons? You say you do not want Oduche to follow strange ways. Do you not know that in a great man’s household there must be people who follow all kinds of strange ways? There must be good people and bad people, honest workers and thieves, peace-makers and destroyers; that is the mark of a great obi . In such a place, whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.’
    If Oduche had any reluctance left after his father had talked to him it was removed as soon as he began to go to church. He found that he could learn very quickly and he began to think of the day when he could speak the language of the white man, just as their teacher, Mr Molokwu, had spoken with Mr Holt when he had visited their church. But there was somebody else who had impressed Oduche even more. His name was Blackett, a West Indian missionary. It was said that this man although black had more knowledge than white men. Oduche thought that if he could get one-tenth of Blackett’s knowledge he would be a great man in Umuaro.
    He made very good progress and was popular with his teacher and members of the church. He was younger than most other converts, being only fifteen or