In a dream, heavy footsteps and voices approached Nyagar’s hut. He woke up to find his wife missing and he rushed to her hut. He heard a group of cattle thieves approaching his gate, and he realized they were cattle thieves. The crowd warned him not to throw a spear, as it could be used against them.
The thieves took the wrong turning and crossed the River Opok, but they found themselves in a whirlpool. The crowd smoted the thieves to the ground, and one of them escaped into a thick bush by the river. The crowd beat the bush around with their clubs, but no sound was heard. Another thief drove a knife into the shoulder-blade of one of the pursuers, who fell back with the knife still sticking in him.
Nyagar plucked the knife from Omoro’s shoulder and put his hand over the wound to stop the bleeding. The crowd tried to make an example of this thief, hitting him several times on the head and chest. Omoro raised his voice, urging the crowd to give up the ghost and call the entire clan to bury him by the riverside.
The men walked back home in silence, while Nyagar entered his hut. A voice told him to be early tomorrow to stop the women before they started going to the river. Nyagar entered his home, and he found a medicine bag and a bamboo container. He opened the door slowly and closed it quietly after him.
As dawn approached, Nyagar heard the echo of his footsteps and thought about the other two thieves who had escaped. He was nervous, but the heap of green leaves came in sight, and he felt paralyzed. He moved on faster, and the echo of his footsteps bothered him.
Nyagar finds a dead body and is left alone with the body. He feels nervous and decides to investigate the man’s pockets, thinking he has enough wealth. However, an urge urges him to put his hand in the man’s pockets and claim all the money. Nyagar finds the man’s neck and a string tied around his neck, which he uses to remove the thief’s bag. The thief regains consciousness and falls unconscious, but manages to get up on his feet.
The clan leader Olielo explains that their laws prohibit wanton killing, treating thieves and adulterers as animals. They believe that killing a man is not guilty of murder, as society has a duty to protect them and their children. However, the white man’s laws are different, as they believe they must handle the man carefully. The clan leaders elect thirty men to tell the white man that they have killed the thief and that the whole clan killed him.
The group moves towards the river where the dead thief is covered in leaves to await the arrival of the white man. Nyamundhe, Nyagar’s co-wife, asks where Nyagar is, but she believes he has gone with the thirty men. Nyamundhe wakes up early this morning, but the gate is open, indicating that he had left the village.
Nyamundhe and her co-wife were walking along a narrow path to the river when they heard the sound of two police lorries approaching. The white officer demanded information about the killing of a thief, but Olielo defended himself by stating that they killed a man. The crowd was restless, and the police took the corpse to Kisumu for a post-mortem. Some people believed that bile was extracted from such bodies and given to police tracker dogs, which could track a thief to his house.
The European officer instructed the other police officers to uncover the body, and they obeyed. The body was found to be Nyagar, his cousin, who had been driven through his right eye with a wooden stick. Nyamundhe broke free from the crowd and wept bitterly, asking where the thief was. As tension mounted, the men who had killed the thief left Nyagar entering his village. Olielo appealed to his people to not let the evil hand descended upon them and not break up their society.
Nyamundhe struggled with the police, who carried her husband’s corpse for a post-mortem. A police officer promised a village-wide inquiry into his death, but she refused. She wept and chanted, expressing her dissatisfaction with the mourners who had cheated her. She wished for a husband who would forgive her and provide a husband for the night.
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