"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. Our
fathers never dreamed of such a thing, they never killed their brothers. But a white man
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 learned to
shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.'
We must root out this evil. And 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 ankledeep..."
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 marketplace to the
white man's court, and to the stream beyond it. And 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. The man 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."