“I thank you,” murmured Sunario.
“Reflect seriously upon what I am saying to you, regent. If you cannot make your brother listen to reason, if the salaries of the heads are not paid at the earliest possible date, then ... then I shall have to act. And, if my warning is of no avail, then it means your brother’s ruin. You yourself know, the dismissal of a regent is such a very exceptional thing that it would bring disgrace upon your family. Help me to save the house of the Adiningrats from such a fate.”
“I promise,” murmured the regent.
“Give me your hand, regent.”
Van Oudijck pressed the thin fingers of the Javanese:
“Can I trust you?” he asked.
“In life, in death.”
“Then let us go indoors. And tell me as soon as possible what you have discovered.”
The regent bowed. A greenish pallor betrayed the silent, secret rage which was working inside him like the fire of a volcano. His eyes, behind Van Oudijck’s back, stabbed with a mysterious hatred at the Hollander, the low-born Hollander, the base commoner, the infidel Christian, who had no business to feel anything, with that unclean soul of his, concerning him, his house, his father, his mother, or their supremely sacred aristocracy and nobility ... even though they had always bowed beneath the yoke of those who were stronger than they....