"These courtesies concluded, Nala called upon his daughter Maiwa to tell
her tale to the head men, and this she did most simply and effectively.
She reminded them that she had gone as an unwilling bride to Wambe--that
no cattle had been paid for her, because Wambe had threatened war if she
was not sent as a free gift. Since she had entered the kraal of Wambe
her days had been days of heaviness and her nights nights of weeping.
She had been beaten, she had been neglected and made to do the work of a
low-born wife--she, a chief's daughter. She had borne a child, and this
was the story of the child. Then amidst a dead silence she told them the
awful tale which she had already narrated to me. When she had finished,
her hearers gave a loud ejaculation. '_Ou!_' they said, '_ou!_ Maiwa,
daughter of Nala!'

"'Ay,' she went on with flashing eyes, 'ay, it is true; my mouth is as
full of truth as a flower of honey, and for tears my eyes are like the
dew upon the grass at dawn. It is true I saw the child die--here is the
proof of it, councillors,' and she drew forth the little dead hand and
held it before them.

"'_Ou!_' they said again, '_ou!_ it is the dead hand!'

"'Yes,' she continued, 'it is the dead hand of my dead child, and I bear
it with me that I may never forget, never for one short hour, that I
live that I may see Wambe die, and be avenged. Will you bear it, my
father, that your daughter and your daughter's child should be so
treated by a Matuku? Will ye bear it, men of my own people?'

"'No,' said an old Induna, rising, 'it is not to be borne. Enough have
we suffered at the hands of these Matuku dogs and their loud-tongued
chief; let us put it to the issue.'