“You remember,” he laughed, “how Than Khan and Liem King tumbled down from top to bottom? It was fine sport to you then!”
It took but a few moments to tie up the two victims to the Niboeng-palms, which grew in front of the hut—to the very trees to which the two Chinamen and Ardjan himself had been fastened.
“The kandjeng toean to that tree,” said Ardjan, pointing to the stem at which he had himself suffered.
“Pardon! Pity!” the poor victims kept crying incessantly.
No one heeded their agonising yells. When they were tied up—Ardjan gave the word: “Now, my lads, give way!”
Four men stepped forward each armed with a bunch of the formidable nettle, and the blows began to fall like rain upon the bare limbs of the wretched victims.
Wherever the leaves fell the flesh seemed to shrink away in agony.
The Chinaman bit his under-lip until the teeth met in the flesh, but he did not utter a single moan. At first van Gulpendam strove to follow his example; but he had not the tough resolution of an Asiatic in this supreme moment. He could not restrain himself. First he moaned, then he whimpered, he cried aloud in his misery, he howled, he yelled with pain. Nothing could touch his ruthless executioners. “Pardon! mercy!” he cried. “Oh, I beg for mercy!”
But, in reply to his piteous cries, came the words:
“Dalima! Ardjan! Pak Ardjan! Setrosmito!” And then upon the brain of the unhappy Resident there flashed another name, a name more terrible to him perhaps than all the others: