"Mynheer Gross," the secretary entreated, "let me again beg the privileges of an old friend. Is it admiration for Koyala's beauty or your keen sense of justice that leads you to so warm a defense?"
Peter Gross's reply was prompt and decisive.
"Vrind Sachsen, if she had been a hag I'd have thought no different."
"Search your heart, Vrind Pieter. Is it not because she was young and comely, a woman unafraid, that you remember her?"
"Women are nothing to me," Peter Gross retorted irritably. "But right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether in Batavia or Bulungan."
Sachsen shook his head.
"Vrind Pieter," he declared sadly, "you make me very much afraid for you. If you had acknowledged, 'The woman was fair, a fair woman stirs me quickly,' I would have said: 'He is young and has eyes to see with, but he is too shrewd to be trapped.' But when you say: 'The fault was ours, we deserved to lose the cargo,' then I know that you are blind, blind to your own weakness, Pieter. Clever, wicked women make fools of such as you, Pieter."
One eyebrow arched the merest trifle in the direction of the governor. Then Sachsen continued:
"Vrind Pieter, I am here to-night to warn you against this woman. I have much to tell you about her, much that is unpleasant. Will you listen?"
Peter Gross shrugged his shoulders.