“That’s just the question,” grumbled Zikali in a deep voice. “All that I know is that it was done by poisoning, and I smell the poison. It is here.”
Then he walked to where Mameena sat and cried out:
“Seize that woman and search her hair.”
Executioners who were in waiting sprang forward, but Mameena waved them away.
“Friends,” she said, with a little laugh, “there is no need to touch me,” and, rising, she stepped forward to the centre of the ring. Here, with a few swift motions of her hands, she flung off first the cloak she wore, then the moocha about her middle, and lastly the fillet that bound her long hair, and stood before that audience in all her naked beauty—a wondrous and a lovely sight.
“Now,” she said, “let women come and search me and my garments, and see if there is any poison hid there.”
Two old crones stepped forward—though I do not know who sent them—and carried out a very thorough examination, finally reporting that they had found nothing. Thereon Mameena, with a shrug of her shoulders, resumed such clothes as she wore, and returned to her place.
Zikali appeared to grow angry. He stamped upon the ground with his big feet; he shook his braided grey locks and cried out:
“Is my wisdom to be defeated in such a little matter? One of you tie a bandage over my eyes.”
Now a man—it was Maputa, the messenger—came out and did so, and I noted that he tied it well and tight. Zikali whirled round upon his heels, first one way and then another, and, crying aloud: “Guide me, my Spirit!” marched forward in a zigzag fashion, as a blindfolded man does, with his arms stretched out in front of him. First he went to the right, then to the left, and then straight forward, till at length, to my astonishment, he came exactly opposite the spot where Masapo sat and, stretching out his great, groping hands, seized the kaross with which he was covered and, with a jerk, tore it from him.