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I am writing this (it began) not in the hope that anyone might read it, nor yet in order to make an account to be read by anyone; no, I write it only for myself, to lay out and examine the events of the last few days in detail and, if I can, to make some sense of it. For certain I am that it will not make sense to anyone else.

I have been young, and in my youth I have travelled many lands and seen many things. I have heard of wonders too, that I have not seen, but those who told me of such things were people whom I have no reason to disbelieve. And although I do not rate myself a sceptic on all things – I have seen too much – I am not completely credulous either. I hope that when I have written out what my eyes have seen, my ears have heard – and, not the least, my nose has smelt – I might be able to find some rational explanation for it all.

This is an old house, this Highwinds. I remember coming here back in my childhood when it belonged to my father’s brother. Then I went to sea, and as the years passed this house was sold and then re-acquired, this time by my cousin. All those years I never came here; my time ashore was short and spent in other places and doing other things. A house I scarcely remembered, out in the middle of nowhere, had no appeal for me.

But times change and the years pass, and I grew older and disillusioned with the sea, and in the end I made up my mind to retire. Not for me a shore job for a shipping line, which I could have had for the asking; no, for the sea was even so in my blood, and even though I was tired of her and her moods and caprices, if I stayed close to her I would never find peace. I would hear her calling, and that calling would never stop.

So I decided to go far from the sea, as far as possible, and the mountains came to mind. I would, I decided, buy a house in the hills, somewhere without too many people, so I could have the privacy shipboard life had denied me. I had money – all through my years aboard, I had saved, and I had invested fairly well. But still, I had no knowledge then that my cousin, who had bought Highwinds and brought it back to the family, lay mortally ill; nor yet did I know that he had decided that I, who had scarce any contact with him, would be the inheritor of the house while sundry other relations got his money and his other wealth. But so it was.

I still remember the day I was driven up here for the first time. It was a grey and gloomy afternoon, with rainwater dripping off the trees, and the mud lay thick on the fields. The house looked uninviting too, and cheerless, and different far from what I recalled of it from when I was a child. But one does not look a gift horse in the mouth, and of course it was up in the hills and gave me some privacy besides; so I accepted the bequest and settled in. And indeed when the sun shone, the house seemed transformed, and reminded me most forcefully of my younger days.

It is a month ago now that my old friend and shipmate E called me. He too had retired from the sea and after his final voyage he said he would like to meet me before taking up an appointment in a shipping office. He invited himself to Highwinds, and because I had not met him for many years, I awaited is coming with some pleasure and excitement.

He arrived one evening, late, when the lights in the valley had begun to go out one by one. He seemed much aged since I had seen him last; the spark had gone out of his eyes and his face was gaunt and haggard. But he smiled and greeted me warmly enough, and shook my hand with the vigour of the old days.

I soon became aware that there was something on his mind; I would have guessed that in any case from his visit to me. But it was only after dinner on the second day of his visit that he began to talk.

"This last trip of mine," he said, "we went to Port Harcourt in Nigeria." He paused and took a sip of his whiskey. "You’ve been there, so you know that it is in many respects a pestilential place. And among the people you meet are those who would cheerfully cut your throat for a small amount of money. It is a den of thieves, is Port Harcourt.

"I knew a man there, who would sometimes find me curios that I could legitimately sell elsewhere, things from villages in the north of the country, and from other countries besides, from Mali or Niger or Burkina Faso. He plied his trade in a little alley off the waterfront, an alley where I would never dare to step after dark. This time he had something, he told me, that would interest me very much. It was from a village on the edge of the savannah, he said, and he showed it to me. Here it is."

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