There was hardly a moment without its bickering and fierce words, and there were frequent brawls when women fled shrieking, for hill Dyak and coast Dyak and Malay and Bugi could not meet at such close quarters without the feuds of untold generations breaking out.
Foremost in the minds and on the lips of every individual in that reeking press of humanity was the question: "What will the orang blanda (white man) want?" Speculation ran riot, rumor winged upon rumor, and no tale was too fantastical to lack ready repetition and credulous listeners. Mynheer would exact heavy penalties for every act of piracy and killing traced back to Bulungan, so the stories ran; mynheer would confiscate all the next rice crop; mynheer would establish great plantations and every village would be required to furnish its quota of forced labor; mynheer would demand the three handsomest youths from each village as hostages for future good behavior. Thus long before the council assembled, the tide was setting against Peter Gross.
Bulungan was ripe and ready for revolt. It chafed under the fetters of a white man's administration, lightly as those fetters sat. Wildest of Borneo's residencies, it was the last refuge of the adventurous spirits of the Malay archipelago who found life in the established provinces of Java, Sumatra, and Celebes all too tame.
They had tasted freedom for two years under Muller's innocuous administration and did not intend to permit the old order to be changed. Diverse as their opinions on other matters might be, bitter as their feuds might be, hill Dyak and coast Dyak, Malay, Chinese, Bugi, and Bajau were united on this point. So for the first time in Bulungan's history a feeling of unanimity pervaded a conclave of such mongrel elements as were now gathered in old "Rotterdam" town. This feeling was magnified by a report—originating, no one knew where, and spreading like wildfire—that the great Datu, the chief of all the pirates of the island seas, the mysterious and silent head of the great confederation, was in Bulungan and would advise the chiefs how to answer their new white governor.
Peter Gross was not wholly ignorant of public sentiment in the town. One of Captain Carver's first acts on coming to Bulungan was to establish the nucleus of a secret service to keep him informed on public sentiment among the natives. A Dyak lad named Inchi, whom Carver had first hired to help with the coarsest camp work, and who had formed an immediate attachment for his soldierly white baas, was the first recruit in this service and brought in daily reports.
"Inchi tells me that the chiefs have decided they will pay no more tax to the government," Carver announced to Peter Gross on the morning of the council. The resident and he were on the drill-ground where they could talk undisturbed. Peter Gross's lips tightened.
"I expected opposition," he replied non-committally.
"Too bad we haven't the Prins Lodewyk here," Carver remarked. "A few shells around their ears might bring them to their senses."
"We don't need such an extreme measure yet," Peter Gross deprecated gently.
"I hardly know whether it's safe for us to venture into the town," Carver observed. "Couldn't you arrange to have the meeting here, away from all that mob? There must be thirty thousand people down below."