I believed that I was giving to her a potion which would cause her husband to hate her and no more." Here she looked round and her eyes met those of Hokosa.
"Who told you that this was so ?" asked one of the judges.
"A witch-doctor," she answered, "from whom I bought the medicine in the old days, long ago, when Umsuka was king." Hokosa gasped.

Why should this woman have spared him?
No further question was asked of her, and the judges consulted together.
At length the king spoke.
"Woman," he said, "you are condemned to die.

You will be taken to the Doom Tree, and there be hanged.

Out of those who are assembled to try you, two, the Messenger and myself, have given their vote in favour of mercy, but the majority think otherwise.

They say that a law has been passed against murder by means of witchcraft and secret medicine, and that should we let you go free, the people will make a mock of that law.
So be it.