o not deny it,
my Father, but there sits the real traitress, red with the blood of
Umbelazi and with that of thousands of others who have '_tshonile'd_'
[gone down to keep him company among the ghosts]. Therefore, O King, I
beseech you, spare the life of Saduko, my husband, or, if he must die,
learn that I, your daughter, will die with him. I have spoken, O King."

And very proudly and quietly she sat herself down again, waiting for the
fateful words.

But those words were not spoken, since Panda only said: "Let us try the
case of this woman, Mameena."

Thereon the law officer rose again and set out the charges against
Mameena, namely, that it was she who had poisoned Saduko's child, and
not Masapo; that, after marrying Saduko, she had deserted him and gone
to live with the Prince Umbelazi; and that finally she had bewitched the
said Umbelazi and caused him to make civil war in the land.

"The second charge, if proved, namely, that this woman deserted her
husband for another man, is a crime of death," broke in Panda abruptly
as the officer finished speaking; "therefore, what need is there to hear
the first and the third until that is examined. What do you plead to
that charge, woman?"

Now, understanding that the King did not wish to stir up these other
matters of murder and witchcraft for some reason of his own, we all
turned to hear Mameena's answer.

"O King," she said in her low, silvery voice, "I cannot deny that I left
Saduko for Umbelazi the Handsome, any more than Saduko can deny that he
left Umbelazi the beaten for Cetewayo the conqueror."

"Why did you leave Saduko?" asked Panda.

"O King, perhaps because I loved Umbelazi; for was he not called the
Handsome? Also _you_ know that the Prince, your son, was one to be
loved." Here she paused, looking at poor Panda, who winced. "Or,
perhaps, because I wished to be great; for was he not of the Blood
Royal, and, had it not been for Saduko, would he not one day have been a
king? Or, perhaps, because I could no longer bear the treatment that the
Princess Nandie dealt out to me; she who was cruel to me and threatened
to beat me, because Saduko loved my hut better than her own. Ask
Saduko; he knows more of these matters than I do," and she gazed at him
steadily. Then she went on: "How can a woman tell her reasons, O King,
when she never knows them herself?"--a question at which some of her
hearers smiled.

Now Saduko rose and said slowly:

"Hear me, O King,