After Simbi had put down the sacrifice, she knelt down before it, and as she was praying “I make this sacrifice and bring it here, just to help me to know the ‘Poverty’ and the ‘Punishment’ and to experience their difficulties, and also …”
A very tall man came from her back and at the same time he held her arms and head backward. He drew the head toward himself so violently that Simbi stood up suddenly without her wish.
The name of this terrible man was Dogo. Dogo was an expert kidnapper of children and he was a native of a town called the “Sinners’ town”, the town in which only sinners and worshippers of gods were living. Dogo had no other work more than to be travelling on every path and kidnapping another people’s children and then selling them as slaves for the foreigners. But only this Path of Death led to his town and the town was too far and too fearful for other people to go there, hence it was among some towns which were the last to the end of the world, perhaps.
And it was from this junction Simbi started to receive the punishment, according to what her soothsayer had told her.
At the same moment, Dogo was pushing Simbi along one of that three paths, and that was the Path of Death. At the first instance she tried to snatch herself back from Dogo and then return to her village. But he did not give her the chance. Instead, he was just slapping both her ears and dragging her along. And she had lost all her senses within a few minutes.
“Who are you pushing me along mercilessly like this?” Simbi asked with the trembling voice when she became conscious.
“Dogo, the kidnapper, please,” he replied sharply. “To where are you pushing me now?” she asked painfully.
“I am pushing you to another town in which I shall sell you,” he replied simply.
But when Simbi heard so, she stopped firmly on both feet at the centre of the path.
“I want to go back to my mother now,” she told Dogo horribly.
“By the way what is your name?” Dogo asked wildly.
“My name? My name is Simbi,” she sneezed and then replied softly.
“Simbi?” he repeated the name. Simbi hesitated for a few seconds and then said “Yes!” disrespectfully.
“Huh o! is that so? all right, keep going, and that is the name with which your buyer will be calling you or if you are unlucky, he shall give you a different name which is suitable for a slave!”
“Keeping going to where, Mr. Dogo?” Simbi asked without being feared of any number of the heavy slaps that he might give her.
“To where I am going to sell you now,” he explained simply. “Sell me? No! you cannot do that,” she wondered.
Having said like that and still she insisted to keep going. Then Dogo struck both her eyes with his thick palm. And without mercy he pushed her so heavily that she dashed to a tree nearby, and at the same moment she fell flatly on the path as if she had already dead.
After a few minutes that she became conscious, she told Dogo loudly “Don’t be stupid, man! Let me go back to my mother!”
“To go back to your mother?” Dogo responded and laughed greatly. “Oh yes! don’t you know that my mother is the most wealthy woman in my village?” she explained boldly, perhaps Dogo would release her to go back.
“Of course, your mother may be a millionaire, that does not concern me in any way. But I am taking you to where I am going to sell you and then to spend the money that I sell you for all my needs, hence am not entitled to your mother’s wealths,” he replied to simply as if Simbi was a fowl that he was going to sell.
“Don’t you know that it is entirely wrong and shameful to sell the daughter of a wealthy woman like me, and furthermore my mother has no other issue except I alone?”
“Of course, I don’t know! and I don’t want to know whether you are the daughter of a wealthy woman, just keep going to where I am going to sell you,” he replied so horribly that Simbi thought she had already dead.
“But if you take me back to my mother now and sell me back to her, I am quite sure that she will pay you even a larger amount of money than a foreigner who will buy me can pay for you.” she suggested calmly.
“Of course, that is a useful advice which you are quite right to give, and that is useful only for you, but it is entirely useless to me. For it will cause a serious trouble to me if I take you back to your mother, hence it is impossible for a mother to see the captor of her daughter without arresting him for the police,” Dogo explained and he rejected her advice.
When Simbi believed that everything had come to the climax, she confessed painfully, “If that is so, Dogo, I shall confess to you now that the reason why you met me at the junction and then caught me, was that I had wanted to know the ‘Poverty’ and the ‘Punishment’ and to experience also their difficulties. But I have now declined from my wish in respect of the severe punishments which you are giving me continuously since when you have caught me about one hour ago.
“And it is this day, I believe that it is entirely bad for a young girl like me to determine to know the ‘Poverty’ and the ‘Punishment’. Hence those who are now in poverty and punishment are praying every minute to free from them. But I admit that I have made a great mistake.
“Although, my wealthy mother and with several old people of my village, had already warned me seriously for not attempting to know them (Poverty and Punishment), but I did not pay heed to their warning, my ears rejected the warning as a ‘nonsense’.
“I beg you, Dogo, my captor, to have mercy on me and set me free and let me go back now to my mother, otherwise she will be puzzled probably to death in a few days’ time, if she does not see me to return home.”
“Is that so, Simbi? You are lucky then as I kidnapped you this very day that you brought the sacrifice to the junction, which was to help you to know the ‘Poverty’ etc. And I congratulate you highly that you are a brave girl indeed who determines not to face the freedom but the difficulties of the ‘Poverty’ and of the ‘Punishment’ etc.
“Hear me now, Simbi, it is very disgraceful for a brave girl like you to decline from her wish without seeing the end of what she has determined to know.
“I am quite sure, in a few days’ time you shall know the ‘Poverty’ and the ‘Punishment’, even you shall see them personally. And you shall experience their difficulties even farther than as you are expecting them to be. Because the difficulties of the ‘Poverty’ etc. are almost without the end.
“Now, I call your attention back to the matter of setting you free and to have also mercy on you. I can confess to you now, Simbi, that the more I, Dogo, kidnap a boy or girl there is no anything like mercy for him or her at all, and I have never released any of my captives in my life. But I shall sell him or her at all costs whomever he or she may be, and that is my policy from the beginning. Therefore, I am very sorry to tell you now that I shall not depart from this rule, simply because your wealthy mother has no another issue except you alone!
“Hah! Simbi, you want to know and experience the ‘Poverty’ and the ‘Punishment’? And I assure you now that you shall know them to the very end. And to add more to my explanations. You are now on the Path of Death. Of course, I cannot blame you, because ‘the dog which will lose will not answer the call and will not pay heed to the call of its keeper’.
“Therefore, Simbi, there is no need for a person who has already fallen into the water to escape for the cold and you are the very person who has fallen into the water,” Dogo explained distinctly.
But Simbi was greatly terrified when she heard that it was on the Path of Death she was. Because she had been hearing several times from her family and from other people that any one who travelled on this path, was going to die.
“Keep going now girl! and the only promise that I can give you is that I am going to sell you in a town which is near this Path of Death!
“The dog which will lose will not pay heed to the call of its master. That means if you have paid heed to your mother’s warning you should have not met this punishment,” Dogo repeated and then he commanded her to keep going.
And when she refused to keep going, Dogo slapped her at head so heavily that she started to feel headache at the same time, and he was pushing her along the Path of Death with his own hands.
Having travelled till the evening they came to a town. This town was so far away from Simbi’s village that she could not even trace out the right path to her village, even if she had the chance to escape.