This applause and general enthusiasm continued for a considerable time, and was not hushed until the president had repeatedly threatened to have the court cleared.
The prosecution was crushed, utterly annihilated. Feeling that his cause was lost, the djaksa attempted to have the trial adjourned; but Mr. Greveland saw plainly enough how very undesirable such an adjournment would be; and he wisely refused to grant it.
Thus compelled there and then to get up and reply, Mas Wirio Kesoemo could not rise to the level of his subject. He mumbled a few words which did not awaken the slightest attention—he said something about the necessity of vindicating the action of the police, he uttered a few incoherent sentences, he stammered, he drawled, he repeated himself over and over again, and finally sat down without having produced any impression whatever. As soon as he had ended, the president called upon the defence to exercise its right of reply.
With a gesture of lofty disdain, van Beneden refused to avail himself of his privilege:
“No, no, Mr. President,” he said, “anything I could now add would but lessen the impression made by the prosecution. It is to the weakness of the charge brought against him, rather than to the power of the defence, that my client must owe his acquittal.”
After a moment’s pause the president turned to the panghoeloe and asked him what law the sacred book prescribed.
In a sleepy tone of voice the latter replied, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—the man has taken a life—the man must die.”
A shriek resounded in the pandoppo, a Javanese woman had fainted away.
The members of the council thereupon retired to their consulting room. After a while they returned into court and the clerk proceeded to read out an elaborate judgment, wherein, after a number of “seeing thats” and “whereases,” the verdict of “Not Guilty” on both counts was at length pronounced. Then the real storm broke loose. A great number of the audience rushed up to van Beneden and warmly congratulated him on the victory he had just gained. The president, far from trying to repress the general enthusiasm, now cordially joined in it. August raised Setrosmito from the floor and whispered some words in his ear which were immediately afterwards affirmed by the Regent himself.
The poor Javanese cast one single look at his young champion, he pressed his hand to his heart and uttered a few incoherent words. But that one look was sufficient for van Beneden, it was the overflowing of a grateful heart. At the very bottom of the pandoppo one solitary voice cried out: