“ ‘Two days before my leave had expired and that, therefore, I should have to return to my garrison duties at Gombong, I started very early in the morning before the break of day from the dessa Ajo in which I had passed the night. My intention was to explore the Western slopes of the Goenoeng Poleng, and I expected that this trip would bring a rich harvest to my collection. And, my friends, I must tell you that my hopes were amply—very amply—realised. For I secured an Arjuna, a large and most lovely butterfly with pointed golden-green wings fringed with a deep velvety band of black. It was a rare specimen I can assure you, and absolutely perfect and uninjured. The day before, one of the dessa-people at Ajo had brought me a Cymbium Diadema, a fine brown shell spotted with white, which the man assured me, he had picked up on the sands in one of the creeks on the South coast of the island of Noesa Kambangan. I purchased it from the fellow for a mere song.
“ ‘But enough of this: I return to my subject.
“ ‘As I told you, I had started some time before the break of day and had got some distance from the dessa Ajo when the dawn began to tinge the entire mountain range of Karang Bollong. My path was not a very pleasant one to travel along; for it took me right across all the ravines which run down from the heights. These are funnel-shaped, exceedingly tortuous; and twisting and turning in all directions they run down to the plain at the foot of the range, in which the Kali Djetis flows onward to the sea.
“ ‘As gradually I mounted higher and higher, the panorama stretched out at my feet became more and more imposing. The fresh invigorating morning air and the truly magnificent scenery about me, filled me with delight; and every now and then I actually forgot my passion for butterflies wholly absorbed as I was in the glories which lay around me.
“ ‘At length I gained a ridge between two pretty deep ravines, and I was stopping for a few moments to regain my breath after the exertion of climbing the steep ascent up which my path had led me. In both these ravines little brooks were gurgling. They were mere threads of water hurrying down the Goenoeng Poleng, and it was refreshing to look upon them as they frisked and danced and foamed along their strange zig-zag course. From the eminence on which I then stood, they looked like ribbons of silver tape unconsciously displaying their beauty to the morning air. The ravine which I had just left was strewn with big blocks of trachyte flung about in confusion, great masses of ruin detached, no doubt, from the central range. Such was the case also in the other ravine into which I was preparing to descend; but between the boulders and scanty shrubs, my eye suddenly caught the attap-roof of a Javanese house. From the place where I stood, I could catch sight only of the front verandah; but yet that small hut, situated there in the wild and lonely mountain range and at some distance from the dessa Ajo, arrested my attention. Can it be some misanthropist, I thought, who is living there so far away from the haunts of men? Through an open window, my eye could penetrate one of the rooms in the hut, and I thought I saw a snow-white bed-curtain waving to and fro under the influence of the morning breeze; I fancied also that I could distinguish a chair. Now all this greatly puzzled me; for your Javanese, as a rule, does not indulge in such luxuries, and, if he makes use of a curtain at all, he generally selects one of some gaudily coloured material.’ ”
Van Rheijn paused for a moment or two to take a drink of beer, and in doing so he cast a penetrating look upon Charles van Nerekool. The latter was sitting in his chair listlessly rocking himself up and down, and had very much the appearance of a man who listens but whose thoughts are travelling elsewhere.
“You are not listening to me, Charles,” he cried! At this abrupt address van Nerekool started up out of his reverie.
“I?” he asked in confusion.
“Now, you see!” continued van Rheijn with a laugh, “while I am wasting my breath to get to the end of Murowski’s budget, our friend the judge there is sitting in a brown study, his thoughts wandering heaven knows where, but certainly nowhere near the dessa Ajo. But wait a bit, you fellows, mark my words, you will see a change soon. The part most interesting to him is just coming. Now listen.”
Van Nerekool shook his head and smiled incredulously, he puffed hard at his cigar, sat up straight in his chair and disposed himself to listen with concentrated attention.