“You would be doing him the greatest wrong, Dalima.”
“Wrong?” cried the baboe, “how so? by bringing him to you; oh, Nana!”
“Once again, I say not another word on that subject,” cried Anna; and then, taking her companion’s hand she continued: “Now, Dalima, give me your hand—so, that is right; now you will give me your promise, will you not?”
“It makes my heart ache to think of it,” sobbed Dalima, “but if you will have it so, I must obey. I give you my promise.”
“That’s a good girl,” said Anna cheerfully, but with a painful smile. “Now I am glad that you have come, for you will be able to help me, oh! ever so much. Look what a splendid striped material I have here on the loom.”
“Do you make those things, yourself, Nana?” asked Dalima in pitying accents, “you, the daughter of a kandjeng toean Resident?”
“Now, Dalima,” said Anna sadly, “that is another subject you must never mention. Not a soul knows me here. They do not so much as suspect that I am a white woman. They take me for a Solo princess who has been banished by her father—you told me so yourself—Oh! there are such funny stories about that, the one funnier than the other. You see that name of poetri is of the greatest use to me. The good dessa-folk look upon me as a kind of supernatural being and it protects me from all danger. Why even the old woman who sells my goods takes me for a relative of the Queen of the South, and can get much better prices for me than the things would otherwise fetch.”
“Do you sell those ‘kains’ you make, Nana?” exclaimed Dalima, folding her hands in sorrowful wonder, “you, the child of a kandjeng toean?”
“But Dalima,” replied Anna, with a smile, “that child of a kandjeng toean, as you call her, must eat like other mortals. Come, I must get on with my work, we have wasted too much time already in talking. That kain polèng mas has been ordered and I must get it done as soon as possible.”
So Anna set to work again at the loom. Dalima, for a little while, sat watching her with tearful eyes; but presently she jumped up, took the spinning-wheel and placed it close to the loom so that they could continue their conversation without allowing their hands to be idle, and then began industriously to spin. So clever did she show herself at the wheel that Anna gave her an approving nod and said: