To this remark Panda made no answer, perhaps because it was
unanswerable, even in a land where it was customary to kill the supposed
wizard first and inquire as to his actual guilt afterwards, or not at
all. Or perhaps he thought it politic to ignore the suggestion that he
had been inspired by personal enmity. Only, he looked at his daughter,
Nandie, who rose and said: "Have I leave to call a witness on this matter of the poison, my
Father?"
Panda nodded, whereon Nandie said to one of the councillors: "Be pleased to summon my woman, Nahana, who waits without."
The man went, and presently returned with an elderly female who, it
appeared, had been Nandie's nurse, and, never having married, owing to
some physical defect, had always remained in her service, a person well
known and much respected in her humble walk of life.
"Nahana," said Nandie, "you are brought here that you may repeat to the
King and his council a tale which you told to me as to the coming of
a certain woman into my hut before the death of my first-born son, and
what she did there. Say first, is this woman present here?"
"Aye, Inkosazana," answered Nahana, "yonder she sits. Who could mistake
her?" and she pointed to Mameena, who was listening to every word
intently, as a dog listens at the mouth of an ant-bear hole when the
beast is stirring beneath.
"Then what of the woman and her deeds?" asked Panda.
"Only this, O King. Two nights before the child that is dead was taken
ill, I saw Mameena creep into the hut of the lady Nandie, I who was
asleep alone in a corner of the big hut out of reach of the light of the
fire. At the time the lady Nandie was away from the hut with her son.
Knowing the woman for Mameena, the wife of Masapo, who was on friendly
terms with the Inkosazana, whom I supposed she had come to visit, I did
not declare myself; nor did I take any particular note when I saw her
sprinkle a little mat upon which the babe, Saduko's son, was wont to
be laid, with some medicine, because I had heard her promise to the
Inkosazana a powder which she said would drive away insects. Only, when
I saw her throw some of this powder into the vessel of warm water that
stood by the fire, to be used for the washing of the child, and place
something, muttering certain words that I could not catch, in the straw
of the doorway, I thought it strange, and was about to question her when
she left the hut. As it happened, O King, but a little while afterwards,
before one could count ten tens indeed, a messenger came to the hut to
tell me that my old mother lay dying at her kraal four days' journey
from Nodwengu, and prayed to see me before she died. Then I forgot all
about Mameena and the powder, and, running out to seek the Princess
Nandie, I craved her leave to go with the messenger to my mother's
kraal, which she granted to me, saying that I need not return until my
mother was buried.