As soon as the six men were locked up, court messengers went into Umuofia to
tell the people that their leaders would not be released unless they paid a fine of two
hundred and fifty bags of cowries.
"Unless you pay the fine immediately," said their headman, "we will take your
leaders to Umuru before the big white man, and hang them."
This story spread quickly through the villages, and was added to as it went.
Some said that the men had already been taken to Umuru and would be hanged on the
following day. Some said that their families would also be hanged. Others said that
soldiers were already on their way to shoot the people of Umuofia as they had done in
Abame.
It was the time of the full moon. But that night the voice of children was not
heard. The village ilo where they always gathered for a moon-play was empty. The
women of Iguedo did not meet in their secret enclosure to learn a new dance to be
displayed later to the village. Young men who were always abroad in the moonlight
kept their huts that night. Their manly voices were not heard on the village paths as they
went to visit their friends and lovers. Umuofia was like a startled animal with ears erect,
sniffing the silent, ominous air and not knowing which way to run.
The silence was broken by the village crier beating his sonorous ogene. He
called every man in Umuofia, from the Akakanma age group upwards, to a meeting in
the marketplace after the morning meal. He went from one end of the village to the
other and walked all its breadth. He did not leave out any of the main footpaths.
Okonkwo's compound was like a deserted homestead. It was as if cold water had
been poured on it. His family was all there, but everyone spoke in whispers. His
daughter Ezinma had broken her twenty-eight day visit to the family of her future
husband, and returned home when she heard that her father had been imprisoned, and
was going to be hanged. As soon as she got home she went to Obierika to ask what the
men of Umuofia were going to do about it. But Obierika had not been home since
morning. His wives thought he had gone to a secret meeting. Ezinma was satisfied that
something was being done.