Summary

“The Martyr” - The first section of the story is told from the perspective of Mrs. Hill, a middle-aged, white widow and mother of two adult children. She and her white friends, Mrs. Smiles and Mrs. Hardy, discuss the killing of a pair of white landowners, the Garstones, by a mysterious gang that Mrs. Smiles and Mrs. Hardy believe were black rebels and who had been let into the Garstone’s home by a man who had been a trusted servant, but who had actually hated them. Mrs. Hill, however, is more liberal than her friends. Narration describes how self-consciously compassionate she has been towards her “boys” – the black men who work on her family’s plantation.

Narration then shifts focus to one of those “boys” – Njoroge, one of Mrs. Hill’s house servants. As he leaves her home...