"Wipe it up."
"Presently, kandjeng, oh, presently!... First to the river...."
"O my God, O my God!"
The boy's teeth chatter and his eyes start from his head and his heart thumps, in his fever. He is mortally frightened, but he wants to see, too. He does not understand and, above all, he wants to see. His childish curiosity wants to see the terrible Thing which he does not yet understand. Silently, on his bare feet, he steals through the dark verandah. And, in the dim light of the night outside ... he sees! He sees the Thing! A flash of lightning, terrible; a clap of thunder, as if the mountains were falling ... and he has seen! He is now looking only at vagueness, the vague progress of something which they are carrying ... of somebody whom they are carrying, Mamma, Mr. Emile and Ma-Boeten. In his innocence, he does not realize whom. In his innocence, he thinks only of terrible things and people, of robbers and treasures, of creepy incidents in his story-books.... Whom are they carrying through the garden? Can't Papa hear them? Won't he wake? Is he so fast asleep?
Now he no longer hears their voices.... Now they have disappeared in the garden.... Doesn't the oppas hear?... No, everything remains quiet; everything has disappeared in the darkness and the rain; he sees nothing but the rain pouring in torrents, pelting, pelting, furiously. The furious pelting prevents Father and Oppas from hearing.... The sky has burst and all the rain in the sky is pelting down.... He is shivering with cold and fever. And suddenly he feels his little bare foot stepping on something warm and soft.... It is blood, clotted blood....
He no longer dares to move forwards or backwards. He stands with his teeth chattering and all the clatter of the rain around him.... But he must wake his father, take refuge with him, hide himself in his arms and sob and sob with fright!... He gropes his way back to the middle verandah; he sees the door of Mamma's room standing open: a little lamp is flickering faintly. Again his foot feels the soft warmth and he shudders at the terrible mire, which is blood, clotted blood, and lies everywhere, on the matting. But he wants to get to the little lamp, to take it with him to Papa's room, so far away, near the front verandah. He goes to the lamp and takes it and sees Mamma's bed all tumbled, with the pillows on the floor.... And he now sees the red on the floor, already almost black, and he is terrified and feels icy cold and steps aside with the lamp, so as not to tread on a kris, a handsome presentation weapon, which Papa received from the Regent[11] yesterday! There it lies ... and the blade is red! Now everything is misty-red before his childish eyes, oh, terribly red in the verandah, with its dancing shadows, through which he, so small, goes with his little lamp, in his terror and fever: perhaps he is dreaming!... To Papa's room:
"Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!"
He is stammering with fright, at his wits' end without Papa's protection.
He opens Papa's door:
"Papa, oh, Papa, oh, Papa!"