“I shall go and make my report to Babah Lim Yang Bing and to the Inspector of Police.”
Then he mounted his horse and rode away seemingly along the high-road to Santjoemeh. Seemingly; for presently it will appear whither he actually did go and what business he had on hand.
As soon as he was out of sight of the dessa he took a pathway to the right which ran through the rice-fields and along that bridle-path he rode across the hilly country and thus took a more direct way to the capital than that which the highway offered. His horse seemed to know the country well and made good progress, so that it was hardly midnight when he reached a lonely little cabin. There he dismounted, knocked up its inmate and sent the man on with a message to Santjoemeh.
When Verstork reached the house of the Loerah who with the Wedono had actively assisted him in his troublesome inquiry, it was about nine o’clock in the evening.
He found his friends assembled there and impatiently awaiting his arrival.
“I say,” muttered August van Beneden, “how long you have kept us!”
The young barrister was not in the best of tempers just then for he had been very anxiously looking forward to the promised expedition and now he began to fear that it might not come off at all. Moreover he had, in the Loerah’s house, been frightfully bored as he waited for his friend’s return.
“I say, how long you have kept us!”
“It was no fault of mine,” replied Verstork. “I have had my hands pretty full to-night.”
“Besides,” he continued, “it makes no great difference; for the more I can get through to-night the less I shall have to do in the morning.”