"Do what you are told, woman," Okonkwo thundered, and stammered. "When
did you become one of the ndichie of Umuofia?"
And so Nwoye's mother took Ikemefuna to her hut and asked no more questions.
As for the boy himself, he was terribly afraid. He could not understand what was
happening to him or what he had done. How could he know that his father had taken a
hand in killing a daughter of Umuofia? All he knew was that a few men had arrived at
their house, conversing with his father in low tones, and at the end he had been taken
out and handed over to a stranger. His mother had wept bitterly, but he had been too
surprised to weep. And so the stranger had brought him, and a girl, a long, long way
from home, through lonely forest paths. He did not know who the girl was, and he never
saw her again.