Chapter 43

On the night M’gala came squalling into the world the witch doctor Tiki M’simba saw each and every devil creep into the mother’s hut, and they did not come out again. There was a sceptical man once who pointed out the indisputable fact that Tiki M’simba had quarrelled with M’gala’s father over a question of salt; but whether vengeance or clairvoyance was at the back of the doctor’s vision, all the people of the Lower N’gombi accepted M’gala’s misfortune. His mother hated him; his father, when he was still in the sp…