“Then you suppose Ardjan is still there?” asked her master, somewhat eagerly.
“That I cannot say, toean,” replied Dalima. “I overheard them saying to each other that they intended first to take Ardjan to the djaga monjet, and then come back and fetch me.”
“To the djaga monjet,” hastily cried van Gulpendam. “Man! man!”
“If I were you,” said his wife, as bitterly as she could, “I would this time leave the pajoeng behind.”
But without taking the slightest notice of the amiable remark, the Resident turned to the servant, who had appeared at his call, and said: “Man, you will go at once with a couple of your mates to the Moeara Tjatjing. As you go you are to rouse the people of the neighbouring dessas, and take as many of them with you as you think you will require to help you, and then you will try and arrest Ardjan the Javanese. Baboe Dalima there will show you the way.”
“Oh, you believe the girl’s story then?” contemptuously asked Laurentia.
“Well, not all of it perhaps,” replied her husband, “but anyhow it is of the utmost importance that the matter should be cleared up.” And turning to his servant, he went on: “You carry out my orders to the letter; do you hear? And now go, and take Dalima with you.”
When both had disappeared, van Gulpendam said in a whisper to his wife: “At the bottom of all this mystery, depend upon it, there is some opium-scandal. Whenever Lim Ho’s name is mixed up in anything, there is something going on that must not see the light; and—if my soundings are correct—then—the rich papa will have to pay the piper.”
These words the Resident accompanied with a most expressive gesture, moving his thumb and fore-finger as a man who is counting down money. Mrs. van Gulpendam tried to stop him by looking significantly at her daughter Anna.
“Oh, come, come,” laughed the husband, “she is no longer a baby. When you were her age you had seen a good deal more than that at your parents’. She must by degrees get to understand where all the housekeeping-money comes from.” And drawing his daughter to him, he said to her, as he patted her smooth cheek, “I am right, Anna, am I not? When by-and-bye you are married, you will like to live in a fine house like this, you will like to have your jewels like your mother, you will want fine dresses, elegant carriages, the best and most thorough-bred horses, eh?”