Eguria

AN AFRICAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT BY CYPRIAN EWENSI CONTENT The Dream Mallam Sambo’s Prescription Zainobe is Lovesick A Cloth in the Market-Place A Marriage and a Birth The Quest for Vengeance Tausayi’s Father The One-Eared Thief The Retreating Forest The Forest of Death A Changed Man The Madness of Kyauta A Life of Crime The Hand that Fed Him The Law is fulfilled INTRODUCTION “Put your money on this sheepskin,” said the old man, and if, by the time I finish my tale, there is one of you awake, that man shall claim everything we have collected. Young men, old men, children, and women: they all put some money on the sheepskin beside the old story teller. He waited till they had sat down. He settled comfortably on the sofa and smiled.‘ It is a long tale of vengeance, adventure and love. We shall sit here until the moon pales and still it will not have been told. It is enough entertainment for a night: AN AFRICAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT Chapter One The Dream There was once a