For awhile Verstork respected his friend’s silence. At length he said: “Come now, Charles, you have, I hope, somewhat relieved your breast. I have with a single word been able to draw your attention to that which it imported you much to know. Now try and forget all this for a while in sleep. You have this day had a long—and to you who are unaccustomed to such exercise—a necessarily fatiguing ride. Rest will, therefore, be most beneficial to you. To-morrow still greater fatigues are in store for you. These also I hope will be a distraction, and prove wholesome to your mind. If we would be fit for work to-morrow we must get some sleep. Come along.”
Van Nerekool sighed again. Without a word he rose, he pressed the hand of his friend and then followed him into the hut. The others were already fast asleep, and he stretched himself out by their side upon the wooden bench.
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE DJOERANG PRINGAPOES.
Toeaan!—Toeaaan!—Toeaaaan!—
Such were the most unwelcome sounds which, a few hours later, were heard in the hut in which all our friends lay heavily sleeping.
Gentle sleep had, at length, taken compassion on poor van Nerekool also. For a long time after his conversation with Verstork, he had not been able to close an eye; and had been tumbling and tossing about and making the crazy couch creak and groan to such an extent that Leendert Grashuis and August van Beneden, who were close beside him, had uttered many an angry exclamation:
“For heaven’s sake keep quiet! don’t keep rolling about like that—it is enough to make a fellow sea-sick—” and then again:
“The majesty of the law seems uncommonly restless to-night; perhaps the mosquitoes trouble it, or an unquiet conscience, or a fit of the blues.”