INTO BUZIE CQUNTRY	169
there." The D.C. had laughed and said that he would
like to see the devil, and immediately the devil had
passed invisibly through the dinner-table splitting it
in half. Through a window we could see a man stand-
ing outside the devil's hut in the pouring rain fan-
ning the thunderstorm away with a switch of
elephant hair, fanning it away from the devil's hut
towards the compound and the hills. He stood there
for more than two hours in the rain, fanning.
The storm continued all the evening and well into
the night. It certainly kept away from Zigita; the
hills and the huts leapt up in green light; the thunder
travelled all the way along the rim, the lightning
screwing down into the forest. There was no sound
from the devil's hut. The stage was magnificently set
for a supernatural act. I had promised the boys we
would not look outside, but we kept watch on the hut
through a crack in the shutter. It leapt and receded
before the green flames; something should have
happened to crown the wild night, but nothing did.
The devil never stirred and the great natural prepara-
tion went on too long without a climax; the storm
became a bore.
That night the rats came leaping into my room like
large cats; they knocked things over; they made too
much noise for me to sleep, though they always
evaded the eye of the torch. A tin went crashing over;
once I could have sworn that the lamp itself had
gone. But curiously, when daylight came, nothing
was out of order; even the biscuit-tin I had heard fall
was in its usual place.
There was certainly something bad about Zigita. I
never felt quite well again until I reached the