Chapter 17

The thick smoke attracted some of the villagers an hour or so later and they rushed over to see whose farm was on fire. When they got there with the Chief priest in tow. The men were able to fetch enough water all at once and douse the fire to a great level.

The Chief priest, knowing that Enitan was within the hut, instructed the men to wait outside because he didn't want them to discover the goddess. He walked into the black hut and saw Adigun and Enitan with their arms tightly wrapped around each other but they were burned beyond recognition to black crisp and her charred tail was sprawled out with some of the bones showing where the fire had roasted the flesh off her tail. All her hair was gone too.

When the Chief priest stepped out of the hut with a downcast and dreadful look on his face, he looked up to the sky and slowly shook his head in great sorrow.

"Baba, e soro, (Old man, speak,) who's in the hut?" One of the men anxiously asked on behalf of the others.

The Chief priest lowered his gaze to look at the faces of the men. "It's Adigun...o ti ku... (He's dead)." He said and all the men gave sorrowful exclamations. "Amó n, ti wa ti ba wa! (But, we are done for!)" He added and shaking his head again, he informed the men. "Do not go into the hut, the river will take what belongs to her, herself. I'll advise you all to go back home, lock your doors and wait for the storm that's to come!" The Chief priest said, shook his head yet again and started his walk back home with his staff making a clattering sound each time it touched the earth as he walked.

Not understanding what the Chief priest meant, the men dispersed to their various houses while three of them went to Adigun's house to deliver the unfortunate news to his wife who immediately threw herself on the ground and wailed out aloud with arms thrown up in the air and tearing her scarf from her head immediately she heard of her beloved husband's demise. Her fellow women tried to calm her as they sympathized with her but she refused to be comforted. But that dreadful night, no one heard the hungry cries of the baby helplessly floating down the river.

                                                                                    ★★★

Prince Adewale, after committing the atrocity finally reached the palace with his men who were all bloody from Enitan's blood. After they had repeatedly clubbed the mermaid, even bashing in a side of her skull and yet she had refused to die, Adewale had instructed the men to burn down the hut with their torches.

He believed that if the mermaid refused to succumb to her wounds, she would succumb to the fire, but not after he had ordered one of his men to cut off the end of her tail so she couldn't move freely or escape from the hut. He knew that by now, Adigun would have seen what they had done, but he didn't care because the fisherman would not be able to pin the crime on him.

On their way to the palace, he had reassured the men that his mother would help them out if the Chief priest declined because she was a very powerful witch. Now that they were in the palace, he made his way to his mother's hut and asked his men to wait outside.

The man whose fingers had been bitten off was still in terrible pain and one of the men had to tie his bleeding hand with a piece of cloth after plucking a leaf from the bush and giving him to chew, which would ease the bleeding and act as a partial pain-relief until his wounds could be properly attended to by a herbalist.

Adewale bent down and placed his hands on his knees as he stared at his mother's door. "Maami o!" He called aloud.

"Eh o!" He heard his mother answer from within. "Wo le wa. (Enter)."