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.