Beginning from that day, the Gama-Mahagē, walking everywhere, having sought for black fowls’ flesh and Hīn-aeṭi rice, began to give the Gamarāla amply to eat. While the Gamarāla, too, is eating this tasty food, after a little time he says to the Gama-Mahagē, “Anē! Ban̥,[2] my eyesight is now less.” When he said thus, the Gama-Mahagē more and more gave him black fowls’ flesh and cooked Hīn-aeṭi rice.
After a little time more went by, he informed her that by degrees the Gamarāla’s eyesight is becoming less. At this time the Gama-Mahagē’s paramour began to come without any fear. The Gamarāla, groping and groping like a blind man, when he is walking in the house saw well that the paramour has come.
Having said, “Ban̥, at the time when you are not [here], dogs having come into the house overturn the pots,” the Gamarāla asked for a large cudgel. Keeping the cudgel in this manner while he was lying down, when the paramour came having seized his two hands and beaten him with the cudgel, he killed him outright.
While he was thus, when the Gama-Mahagē came he said, “Look there, Ban̥. Some dogs having come from somewhere or other, came running and jumping into this. Having thrown them down with the cudgel, I beat them. What became of them I don’t know.”
Having heard this matter, at the time when the Gama-Mahagē looked she saw that the paramour was killed, and having become much troubled about it because there was also fear that blame would come to her from the Government, lifting up the corpse and having gone and caused it to lean against a plantain-tree in her father’s garden, she set it there.
Her father having gone during the night-time to safeguard the plantain enclosure, and having seen that a man is [there], beat him with his cudgel. Although the blows he struck were not too hard, having seen that the man fell and was killed, the plantain enclosure person, having become afraid, lifting up the corpse and having gone [with it], pressed the head part in the angle of the shop of a trader in salt, and went away.
The salt dealer having thought, “A thief is entering the house,” struck a blow with a cudgel. But having come near and looked, and seen that the man is dead, at the time when it became light he informed the Government. He said that the man could not die at his blow, and that some person or other had put him there.[3]
Because on account of the dead man there was not any person to lament, having employed women for hire he caused them to lament. At this time one woman lamented: “First, it is my misfortune; next to that, father’s misfortune; and after that the salt dealer’s misfortune.”[4] At the time when they asked, “What is that?” when she related the whole account for her punishment they ordered her to be killed.
Western Province.