Page:Tales of Bengal (S. B. Banerjea).djvu/190

154 Sádhu's daughter; and Nasiban Bibi, his sister-in-law, who all lived with the deceased."

The Government Pleader at once objected to this statement being recorded, as it was hearsay. Nalini, however, assured the judge that the eye-witnesses were in attendance, and called them, one by one, to give evidence. Passing strange was their story. On the evening of Siráji's death they found her writhing in agony on the floor and, on being questioned, she gasped out that she could bear her kinsfolks' tyranny no longer. They had just told her that she was to be excommunicated for intriguing with an infidel. So she had got some yellow arsenic from the domes (low-caste leather-dressers) and swallowed several tolas weight of the poison in milk. The other women were thunderstruck. They sat down beside her and mingled their lamentations until Siráji's sufferings ended for ever. They afterwards agreed to say nothing about the cause of her death for fear of the police. But Rám Harak had come to them privately and frightened them into promising to tell the whole truth, by pointing out the awful consequences of an innocent man's conviction. Their evidence was not shaken by the Government Pleader's cross-examination, and it was corroborated by a dome, who swore that Siráji had got some arsenic from him a few days before her death, on the pretext that it was wanted in