CHAPTER VII.
A TRAITOR IN THE DESSA.
About twelve miles to the south-east of Santjoemeh, in a hilly country which offers to the eye a continual succession of picturesque and lovely views, lies the little dessa Kaligaweh. It is situated in the centre of an extensive forest of cocoa-nut trees which encloses it as in a circle of emerald, and which, viewed from an eminence close by, resembles a mighty garland of verdure whose tops waving in the gentle breeze have the appearance of a frame of grass-green lace-work.
This cocoa-nut forest may be said to form the outer court of the dessa, for the village itself lies concealed in a thick grove of fruit-trees in which the most splendid mangoes, the most delicious ramboetans, the most refreshing assams, the juiciest bliembiengs, the most fragrant djeroeks and the coolest djamboes, and many other gifts of intertropical Pomona grow up and flourish in the richest luxuriance. Here and there tufts of underwood fill the spaces between the little huts and the trees, and flowers in the wildest profusion fill the air with their fragrance and enchant the eye by their rich but harmonious diversity of colour.
The dessa itself is enclosed by dense rows of bamboo, the thick and tall Black bamboo, which furnishes the natives with the most useful building material, and whose long massive stalks growing quite close together and gracefully bending under the load of the heavy plumage of verdure they have to support, form an almost impenetrable hedge, while at the same time they cast the most grateful shade over the enclosure within.
Kaligaweh was but an inconsiderable dessa. Some thirty or forty huts scattered here and there in picturesque disorder among the fruit trees formed the centre of the small community. The inhabitants of this spot so highly favoured by nature occupied themselves, for the most part, with the culture of rice to which the soil was admirably adapted, and the fruitful rice-fields rose all around in the form of an amphitheatre on the hill-slopes. The lower grounds contained several fish-ponds well stocked with bandengs, djampals, Cataks, Gaboes, and many other kinds of fish, all of them highly esteemed by the European and Chinese inhabitants of Santjoemeh, and therefore fetching good prices in the market of that place. Hence the population of Kaligaweh might have been a highly prosperous and flourishing community, had it not been for the ravages which one fatal and all-destructive pest spread among them. Their bane was the passion for opium. That fatal drug had undermined not only their prosperity, but broken down also the constitutions of all those who gave themselves up to its use. It was a sad fact, alas, that the great majority of those who dwelt in Kaligaweh were enslaved to it; but sadder yet it was that there were not a few among them who could recall the good time when the name of opium was scarcely known there. In that short space of time, how complete a change had come over so lovely a spot!
About twelve years ago a native of the dessa, who, in his youth had left it to seek his fortune elsewhere, returned to Kaligaweh. This man, whose name was Singomengolo, but who usually was known as Singo, had let loose the opium fiend upon the quiet and innocent little dessa in which he was born.
Singo, on leaving home, had fallen into the hands of the recruiting serjeants. By encouraging his innate passion for gambling, and by initiating him into the mysteries of opium smoking, these soul-destroyers had, in an unguarded moment, induced him to enlist, and thus to bind himself to the service for a period of six years. The wretches helped the miserable man soon to get rid of the bounty in opium-dens, in gambling houses, at cock-fights, and in excesses of all kinds. Then for six years he was a soldier.
As soon as his time of service had expired, Singo left the army in which he had acquitted himself with some credit, and obtained a place as oppasser (policeman) under one of the government controllers in the interior of the island. He soon gave evidence of considerable skill as a detective, and earned for himself the reputation of a very sharp and clever officer. This reputation brought him under the notice of one of the agents of the opium farmer for the district, who recommended him to the Company; and the Company, appreciating his services, obtained for him the place of bandoelan or opium-detective at their chief office at Santjoemeh.