“It is but a few days ago,” continued van Gulpendam, “that the kandjeng toean Radja honoured me with a particular mark of his high favour.” As he spoke these words he pointed haughtily to the huge cross which still was hanging sparkling on the breast of his light-blue resident’s frock.
“Yes, kandjeng toean!” repeated the leader, while all his men made the sembah in token of deep respect.
“Government will exact the most terrible punishment should you hurt so much as a hair of my head!”
A mocking laugh was the answer to that speech. Twenty men grasped the handles of their krises; but at a wave from the leader’s hand, all kept silence, and not a single word was spoken, not a single blade was drawn.
“Before Government will be able to punish,” rejoined the Javanese quietly, “you will both be dead men.”
“Dead!” exclaimed Lim Ho in a voice husky with terror.
“Dead?” cried van Gulpendam. “No, no, you dare not do that! My death would be too fearfully avenged!”
“Both of you, I said—” resumed the leader with perfect coolness, “I said both of you deserve to die. We have passed sentence upon you. That sentence must be carried out—after that, they may do with us what they will—I mean, of course, if they can lay hands upon us.”
“But,” cried Lim Ho, half mad with terror, “what have I done?”
“You ask me what you have done? Well, I will tell you. In this very hut, you inflicted upon a man, whose only fault was that he loved, and intended to marry, a girl upon whom you had cast your lustful eyes, the most atrocious torture. You ask what you have done? That same young girl you contrived, with the assistance of the njonja of yonder wretch, to get into your possession, you outraged her most brutally, and then, when you had worked your foul will upon her, you cast her off and accused her of opium smuggling.”