Baboe Dalima; or, The Opium Fiend

by M. T. H. Perelaer

But the keepers of the gambling-booth were no fools. Their policy was not to frighten the poor dessa-people at this first attempt; and evidently only a very small portion of the rice-harvest had fallen into their hands. The cheerful and happy faces of the gamblers told plainly enough that there were not many losers among them, and if here and there one had been unlucky, it was always one who could very well stand a slight reverse of fortune. In truth, the “croupiers” did but very little business that night, though they were clever enough to take care, now that the ball had been set rolling, that their losses were not ruinously heavy. In fact, as the night grew on, the rix-dollars of the winners were imperceptibly but surely melting away to guilders and the guilders to still smaller change. Yet, on the whole, the gamblers had won sufficient to make them all noisy and happy.

At length came the hour of midnight, and the heavy gong was struck at the guard-house. The booth-keepers declared that they intended to close, that they had had a really bad night, and they actually did blow out the candles and shut up the place. Many of the people were still lingering about and listening to the cymbal and the craving for cigars began to be felt again. Thus the stall keepers did a roaring trade, and seeing that they also were in the pay of the Babah Lim Yang Bing the money which the confederates had lost at cards, managed to come back to them again through another channel, so that the sacrifice, after all, was not a very alarming one.

At length the store of those pleasant cigars, which was not a very large one to start with, was exhausted. Then, with an indescribably low and nasty smile, Singo and his accomplices began to point to the opium-den where, for the same money, much more real enjoyment could be obtained.

In that wretched hole some girls were publicly seated on the rough benches, and with their shapely fingers were daintily rolling the little balls of opium, and casting seductive looks, coupled with wanton gestures, at the poor victims who stood gazing at the open door of that fatal den without being able quite to pluck up the courage to enter. Alas! for many of them, the temptation was too strong. Excited by the poison which they had already imbibed in considerable quantity—seduced by the wanton allurements of those fair women—first one gave way, then another, and although that night not every compartment of the opium-den was occupied, yet the Chinamen who kept it had every reason to be satisfied.

When Lim Yang Bing was told of the result of that night’s work he rubbed his hands together as he chuckled, that “Singomengolo is really an invaluable fellow—I must not lose sight of him.”

CHAPTER VIII.

DECAY OF THE DESSA.—ARREST OF PAK ARDJAN.

This first fairly successful attempt upon the little dessa was systematically repeated, and every evening the inspiriting tones of the cymbal resounded on the green of Kaligaweh, and every evening also the temptations described in the former chapter were renewed. All this might cost Lim Yang Bing some money at first; but he knew well enough that he would be the gainer in the end and that his capital would soon return to him with ample interest. By degrees it became less and less necessary to allow the gamblers to win; and it was not very long before such a thing only happened now and again so that the hope of gain might not die out altogether. Gradually the poor deluded people began to lose more and more; and one bundle of rice after another passed into the hands of the sharpers who, it must be said, gave liberal prices; and allowed somewhat more than the full market value for the produce.

But it was not only the spirit of gambling which had thus been aroused in Kaligaweh; together with that degrading passion—perhaps in consequence of it—the abuse of opium began to increase to an alarming extent. Six months, indeed, had scarcely elapsed before it became a notorious fact that a very considerable part of the population had taken to opium smoking; and—sadder still—that the opium farmers found powerful allies in the women of the dessa, who very soon began to perceive the influence which the drug had upon their husbands, and who, instead of trying to arrest the unfortunate creatures on their road to ruin, rather encouraged their fatal passion.