“I know nothing about it,” was the reply. “I think that most probably she may have got back to the Residence.”
“Have mercy, have mercy!” shrieked Liem King.
“What? mercy on such brutes as you?” scornfully said Lim Ho.
“But,” they asked; “what harm have we done?”
“I will tell you what you have done,” sneered Lim Ho. “You have had Dalima in your power and you have been pleased to let her go. That’s what you have done and you shall suffer for it. And you!” he hissed out in fury, as he turned to Ardjan, “you have dared to carry the girl away. Oh, you shall pay for it!”
“But she is my bride,” pleaded the wretched man.
“Your bride, indeed,” said Lim Ho with concentrated rage. “Your bride? Do you think a pretty girl like Dalima is destined to be the bride of a Javanese dog like you? But it was last night that you carried her off from the Kiem Ping Hin. Might you perhaps in that ‘djoekoeng’—”
A disgusting leer of disappointed passion passed over the features of Lim Ho as he uttered the half finished question.
“No, no, by Allah!” fiercely exclaimed the Javanese. “Dalima is as pure as the white flower of which she bears the name. But,” added he in a calmer mood, “you know better than that. You know that in such weather as we had last night I had very little time for trifling and love-making.”
“That’s lucky for you,” cried Lim Ho; “had you so much as touched her too freely I would this very moment drive my kreese into you. As it is, I will simply punish you for having run away. I will consent to forget that Dalima is anything to you. But,” he added with an odious smile, “you seem to forget that the matter is somewhat serious for you. You ran away, remember, to give the coastguard notice of the arrival and of the movements of the Kiem Ping Hin—”