"So I went. But, oh! my mother took long to die. Whole moons passed
before I shut her eyes, and all this while she would not let me go; nor,
indeed, did I wish to leave her whom I loved. At length it was over, and
then came the days of mourning, and after those some more days of rest,
and after them again the days of the division of the cattle, so that in
the end six moons or more had gone by before I returned to the service
of the Princess Nandie, and found that Mameena was now the second wife
of the lord Saduko. Also I found that the child of the lady Nandie was
dead, and that Masapo, the first husband of Mameena, had been smelt out
and killed as the murderer of the child. But as all these things were
over and done with, and as Mameena was very kind to me, giving me gifts
and sparing me tasks, and as I saw that Saduko my lord loved her much,
it never came into my head to say anything of the matter of the powder
that I saw her sprinkle on the mat.
"After she had run away with the Prince who is dead, however, I did tell
the lady Nandie. Moreover, the lady Nandie, in my presence, searched
in the straw of the doorway of the hut and found there, wrapped in soft
hide, certain medicines such as the Nyangas sell, wherewith those who
consult them can bewitch their enemies, or cause those whom they desire
to love them or to hate their wives or husbands. That is all I know of
the story, O King."
"Do my ears hear a true tale, Nandie?" asked Panda. "Or is this woman a
liar like others?"
"I think not, my Father; see, here is the muti [medicine] which Nahana
and I found hid in the doorway of the hut that I have kept unopened till
this day."
And she laid on the ground a little leather bag, very neatly sewn with
sinews, and fastened round its neck with a fibre string.
Panda directed one of the councillors to open the bag, which the man
did unwillingly enough, since evidently he feared its evil influence,
pouring out its contents on to the back of a hide shield, which was
then carried round so that we might all look at them. These, so far as
I could see, consisted of some withered roots, a small piece of human
thigh bone, such as might have come from the skeleton of an infant, that
had a little stopper of wood in its orifice, and what I took to be the
fang of a snake.
Panda looked at them and shrank away, saying: "Come hither, Zikali the Old, you who are skilled in magic, and tell us
what is this medicine."