CHAPTER XXI.
IN THE RESIDENT’S OFFICE.
Verstork was much too late.
After the scene in the hut near the Djoerang Pringapoes, he ought at once to have jumped into the saddle and there and then have galloped off to Santjoemeh; thus he might possibly have succeeded in warding off the storm that was gathering over his head. As it was, he had allowed another to forestall him. It was not long before he found that out.
“So!—that is your report of what has taken place!” said van Gulpendam, in the most offensive and sneering tone imaginable, when the Controller at length, after having long been kept waiting and after having times out of number paced up and down the front-gallery, had been admitted into the presence of his chief.
“So—that is your report is it? It seems to me you have taken your time about it! Yesterday, before noon, the information had already reached me. A pleasant dinner time for me when such things are occurring in my residency. But the gentlemen, it seems, were amusing themselves with hunting. Oh, yes! anything may be going on in their district, then they see nothing, they hear nothing!”
“But, Resident—” Verstork ventured to say.
“Hold your tongue, sir,” cried van Gulpendam, savagely, “I have asked you no question, when I do it will be time enough to answer, and then, I suspect, you will have no reply to make.”
Verstork was standing there, in the office of his superior officer, pale as death and unnerved and biting his lips with suppressed rage.
“I cannot say, Mr. Verstork, that you have clapped on too much sail—you have been somewhat slow in making me acquainted with these painful events.”