“Oh, it is all the same to me, noble sir,” said the Chinaman, with his false smile, as he heartily shook the dog’s honest paw.
The Dutch official thoroughly understood those words of the Chinaman. As soon as he was alone in the pandoppo, he, with a greedy look, opened the cigar-case and emptied it on the table. His face beamed with joy, for round each Havanah there was very neatly wrapped a bank-note of a thousand guilders, in such a manner that one half of the cigars only was covered, and nothing could be seen of the paper when first the case was opened. Next he put his fingers into the tea-caddy. Yes, there again he encountered the same soft kind of paper. He was about to pull it out; but suddenly he thought better of it, he hurriedly replaced the precious cigars, snatched up the case and the silver box, and rushed into his private office where he immediately sat down and began to write the letter which so puzzled the President of the Council at Santjoemeh. Just as he had sealed it, he heard his wife coming into the inner gallery, and taking leave of MʻBok Kârijâh.
“A lucky day,” he whispered in her ear, as he threw his arm round her neck. “A lucky day,” and thus he drew her along.
“A lucky day?” she asked, replying to his embrace by folding her arm round his waist as she gazed at him with moist and glittering eyes.
Thus they went to the bedroom. When he got there van Gulpendam carefully closed the door and double locked it. Then he drew his wife to the table, and, taking a seat, he shook out upon it the contents of the cigar-case and of the tea-caddy, while Laurentia stood by him, her eyes fixed upon the bits of paper. There were five-and-twenty of them, there could be no mistake about them, for the mark upon their silky surface told plainly enough that each represented the value of one thousand guilders. A shade of disappointment passed over Laurentia’s handsome features. It passed away in an instant, and was gone long before her husband could notice it. He saw her eagerly seizing upon the notes, carefully unrolling them from the cigars and smoothing down those which had come out of the tea-caddy in a sadly crumpled condition.
“Twenty-five thousand guilders!” cried she. “A pretty sum indeed—Truly it is a lucky day, for added to what I have got—”
“What have you got?” cried her husband.
“Yes, what I have just now received from MʻBok Kârijâh!”
“Let us see! What did she give you?” eagerly cried van Gulpendam.
“I will show you presently; but first this.” As she spoke she took up a little parcel which was lying on the table by the side of a cardboard box which bore marks of having already been opened. She then carefully stripped off and put aside the pisang-leaves in which the parcel was wrapped, and at length she produced a small cup of the commonest earthenware, which contained a greenish, quivering jelly, of most disgusting appearance. “First take this,” said Laurentia, as, with a tiny Chinese spoon, she scooped out of the greenish mass, a piece about the size of a hazel-nut, and held it to her husband’s lips as though she was going to feed him. “First take that, Gulpie, dear—and then I will show you.”