He goes up to the bed with his little lamp in his hand. Papa has slept in the bed, but is not there now.... Where is Papa?... And of a sudden it stands revealed to his childish mind. He sees the terrible Thing, sees it as a dreadful, awful, blood-red haunting vision. What they carried away through the garden, through the pouring rain, to the river ... was Papa, was Papa! What Mamma and Mr. Emile and Ma-Boeten are carrying away outside ... is Papa!... He is all alone in the house ... Papa is dead and they are carrying him to the river.... He has seen the Thing.... He goes on seeing the Thing.... He will always see it.... He does not know why—he has suddenly grown years older—but he shuts Papa's door, goes back, puts Mamma's lamp where he found it and goes back to his own room. He trembles in the dark and his teeth chatter and his eyes start and stare out of his head. But he washes his feet, in the dark, and at once flings the towel into the linen-basket. He creeps into bed, pulls the klamboe to, pulls the coverlet over his ears. And he lies shaking with fever. The iron bedstead underneath him trembles in unison. He is alone in the pasangrahan and he has seen the terrible Thing: first the actual progress of it and then the revealing vision, in the glare of the lightning-flashes, under the roar of the mountain-cleaving thunder. He lies and shakes.... How long does it last? How long does it last?... Half an hour, three-quarters of an hour.... He hears Baboe coming back and Mamma moaning, sobbing, groaning and Ma-Boeten muttering:
"Hush, kadjeng, hush!..."
"They're sure to have seen us!..."
"No, there was no one there.... Think of Sinjo Harold, kandjeng!..."
Everything becomes still....
Deathly still....
The boy lies shaking with fever; and all night long his starting eyes stare and he sees the Thing....
He has seen it ever since; and he has grown to be an old man....
Next day, Papa's body is discovered among the great boulders in the river. There are suggestions of a perkara[12] with a woman, in the kampong,[13] of jealousy. But Dr. Roelofsz finds that the wound was caused by nothing more than a sharp rock, to which Dercksz tried to cling, when drowning.... No need to credit natives' gossip.... No question of a murder.... The controller draws up the report: Assistant-resident Dercksz—staying temporarily in the pasangrahan, unable to sleep because of his fever and the sultry weather—went out during the night, for the sake of air.... The oppasser heard him ... and was rather surprised, for it was raining in torrents.... But it was not the first time that the kandjeng had gone out into the jungle at night, because of his sleeplessness.... He missed his way; and the river was swollen.... It was impossible for him to swim, among the great rocks.... He was drowned in the stormy night.... His body was found by natives some distance below the pasangrahan, while Mrs. Dercksz, on waking in the morning, was very uneasy at not finding her husband in his room....