CHAPTER XV.
UNDER THE WARIENGIEN TREE. IN THE OPIUM-DEN.
The passangrahan did not turn out so very bad after all. The Loerah had managed to get together six mattresses and, somewhere or other, he had found six pillows also. Whether these things were clean or not, the miserable flicker of the little oil-lamp which hung in the middle of the apartment, did not reveal. The Loerah, however, had surpassed himself—he had actually provided six chairs. Very crazy and very tumble-down certainly they were; but they were not wholly unfit for use, and in a dessa like Kaligaweh might be looked upon as “objets de luxe.”
But the young people did not feel the slightest inclination to turn in, they were as yet too much excited by the events they had just witnessed to think of going to sleep. So they brought out the chairs upon the aloon aloon in front of the passangrahan, and having seated themselves in a circle they made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow and lit their manillas. There was, of course, no question of getting anything to drink in the shape of wine or beer, still less possibility was there of obtaining a glass of grog. Unless there are Europeans settled in a dessa, such liquors are nowhere to be found. But the Loerah had supplied for the refreshment of his guests an ample quantity of cocoa-nut milk, and that drink was pronounced most excellent. Indeed it is a most delicious and very refreshing beverage when it is obtained from a young nut before the flesh has had time to set and harden inside the rind.
Very soon the little circle of friends was comfortably seated under a gigantic Wariengien tree, the tall branches of which spreading out far and wide on all sides formed a canopy which covered nearly the entire space of the aloon aloon, and offered a most grateful shade by day, and a shelter also against the heavy dews of night.
From the majority of the horizontal branches there grew down a number of shoots, some as thick as a man’s finger, others no thicker than a pipestem, others again as fine as whip-cord. These shoots, as soon as they reached the soil, struck root and then rapidly increasing in girth, formed, as it were, a number of pillars which helped the old giant to bear his dense mass of wood and of foliage, and greatly enhanced the beauty of the venerable tree.
The firmament above was of the deepest blue, and wonderfully pure and clear. In that vault of Heaven innumerable stars glittered and twinkled in spite of the moon which, now about her full, was shedding over the peaceful scene her soft and placid radiance.
But nature, though so calm and placid, was by no means silent. The air was full of sounds, the strange mysterious music of a tropical night. A gentle breeze was rustling in the branches, and amidst the countless leaves of the colossal wild fig-tree was thus forming, so to speak, the groundwork of a concert produced by a host of invisible artists. In spite of the late nightly hour, a wood-pigeon would now and then come flying home into the crown of the Wariengien tree, and be welcomed on its return by the soft cooing of its mate. Sometimes a solitary cock would start up and, beguiled by the bright moonbeams, would utter his shrill musical crow, fondly imagining, no doubt, that he was heralding the dawn of day. Every moment was heard the sharp, piercing squeak of the swarm of bats, which, in their hunt for insects under the canopy of leaves, glided about in a giddy maze of intersecting and intertwining circles, ovals, spirals and ellipses. Sometimes again from afar came the dismal cry of the flying dogs, as on soft inaudible wing they swooped down upon some fruit-tree in the dessa and quarrelled for the possession of some choice manga. But all these sounds, some musical, others harsh, might be looked upon as the solo-parts in the nameless humming concert which prevailed on all sides and of which the performers were invisible to human eye. In that nightly hour, wherever the ear might turn it heard a constant quivering and throbbing sound, sometimes rising to such a pitch that it unpleasantly affected the ear, then again dying away like the scarcely perceptible murmur of the breeze in a cornfield, and then suddenly ceasing for a moment or two as if to allow the rustling of the leaves to be heard for an instant; but only to join in chorus again with renewed vigour as if wishing to drown all other sounds. This was the chirping of millions upon millions of the greenish orange kind of grasshopper, which perched on every blade of grass on the aloon aloon, and hanging from every leaf of the immense tree, caused that sharp thrilling mass of sound which at times made the air literally quiver with its intensely sharp notes.
Did the young men there assembled pay any heed to this mysterious melody? Did they lend an ear to those notes which, in the tropics, make the midnight hour more tuneful than the dull and heavy noon, when the sun, in his full power, makes all nature thirsty and silent? Had they an eye for that delicious night, with its soft breeze, its glittering firmament, its quiet but glorious moonlight, its quaint and pleasing shadows? It is doubtful whether they heard or saw anything of all these. Indeed, they were wholly engrossed in conversation, and that conversation most naturally ran upon the events of the day. The dreadful scene of social misery at which they had been present was far too powerful to be dismissed from their thoughts. That murder scene was talked over and turned about, and looked at from every point of view; but, the few hurried words with which Verstork, before he went off to write his letters, had explained the matter to his friends, had filled them, one and all, with the deepest pity for poor Setrosmito, and for his family, in their bitter affliction.
Said Grashuis: “What untold misery does that detestable opium-policy bring upon this, in other respects, so richly blessed island? Is it not enough to make one hide one’s head with shame at the thought that a considerable portion of the Dutch revenue is derived from so foul a source?”