As the girl had never seen anything like this drum before she went up quite close to it. The drum then said to her: “What are you doing in my town? No one is allowed to come here, and if anyone does come, they never go back again.”
The girl then began to be afraid and looked round to see how she could escape, but the path she had come by had closed up and there was no way out, as she was entirely surrounded by thick bush.
She then listened and could hear singing and dancing going on, but the sounds seemed to come from the inside of the drum, and, although she looked round everywhere, she could not see anybody.
While she was wondering where the sounds came from, the big drum opened his lips wide and swallowed her up. She slid down his throat and fell into a big compound where there were many people singing and dancing. Ibanang did not know any of the people, but they were those who had disappeared from the surrounding towns for some years.
She then asked some of the people why they did not go back home; so they told her that the only way was to climb up and cut the heart and liver out of the drum, but they could not do that as they had no matchets or knives.
This made the girl very sad, but, as she could not see any other way out of the place, she made up her mind to enjoy herself, and sang and danced with the rest of the people.
When Ibanang’s mother returned from the farm her husband told her that Ibanang had escaped from the house and had gone to the farm. But her mother knew that she must have lost her way, as she had not been to the farm and guessed at once that she had gone to the town of the wooden drum, where she would be killed. She then abused her husband as much as she dared for not looking after their child properly, and pulled her hair down and cried all the night.
Inkang Ezen told her husband that in three days’ time she would set out to find Ibanang, and that if she did not find her she would never return. The next two days Inkang Ezen spent in borrowing native razors from her friends and sharpening them.
Then on the third day she started off, when there was no one about, with the razors in her cloth, and went by the road leading to the town of the wooden drum.
She had not gone far when she met the cripple, who was always in the same place from morning until sunset. He offered Inkang Ezen some kola, as he had done to her daughter, but she refused to take it. Then the cripple called her back and said she was on the wrong road and that if she went further she would never return; but the woman told him she did not care, as she was looking for her daughter, who had disappeared.