[5] He would BEGIN the campaign as the weakest, and yet at last be the strongest. [↑]
CHAPTER XVI.
[COMPOSED BY STERN.]
Havelaar received a letter from the Regent of Tjanjor, wherein the latter communicated to him that he wished to pay a visit to his uncle the Regent of Lebak. This was very disagreeable news for him. He knew how the chiefs in the Preangan Regencies were accustomed to display much magnificence, and how the Regent of Tjanjor could not undertake such a journey without a train of many hundreds, all of whom must be lodged and fed, as also their horses. He would gladly have prevented this visit; but he thought in vain of the means of doing so, without offending the Regent of Rankas-Betong; as the latter was very proud and would have felt deeply offended if his comparative poverty had been mentioned as a motive for not visiting him. And if this visit could not be avoided, it would inevitably give occasion to aggravate the oppression of the people.
It is to be doubted if Havelaar’s speech had made a lasting impression on the chiefs; with many this was certainly [[298]]not the case; but it is certain that, in all the villages, the report had spread, that the gentleman who had power at Rankas-Betong would do justice, and if his words were powerless to prevent crime, they had at least given the victims the courage to complain, however hesitatingly and secretly.
In the evening they crept through the ravine, and when Tine was sitting in her room, she was frightened by an unexpected noise, and saw before the open windows dark forms that sneaked along with a shy step. But very soon she started no more, for she knew what it meant when these forms wandered like so many spectres round the house, and asked protection of her Max. Then she beckoned him, and he got up to call in the complainants. Most of them came from the district of Parang-Koodjang, where one of the chiefs was a son-in-law of the Regent; and though this chief did not omit to take his part of the extortion, yet it was no secret that he generally robbed in name of the Regent, and for his benefit. It was affecting to see how these poor men relied upon the chivalry of Havelaar, that he would not summon them to repeat the following day openly what they told him in his room. This would have caused the ill-treatment of them all, and the death of many. Havelaar made notes of what they said, and after that ordered the plaintiffs to return to their village. He promised that justice should be done, provided they made no opposition, and did not emigrate, as was [[299]]the intention of many. Generally, he was shortly afterwards at the place where the injustice happened, yes, he had often been there already, and had for the most part examined into the affair before the plaintiff himself had returned to his dwelling. In this manner he visited in this extensive department, villages that were eighty miles distant from Rankas-Betong, without the Regent or even the Controller Verbrugge knowing that he was absent from the capital. His object in so doing was to shield the complainants from the danger of revenge, and at the same time to spare the Regent the shame of a public inquiry, which with Havelaar would not have ended in a revocation of the complaint. He still hoped that the chiefs would turn back on the dangerous road which they had already walked so long; and he would in that case have been contented merely to claim indemnification for the poor sufferers.
But on every occasion of his speaking to the Regent, it was evident to him that all promises of amendment were vain; and he was deeply pained at the ill-success of his endeavours.
We shall now leave him for a time in his disappointment and the difficult work he had undertaken, to relate to the reader the history of the Javanese Saïdjah in the dessah Badoer. I extract from Havelaar’s notes the name of this village and that of the Javanese concerned. It is a [[300]]case of extortion and plunder; and lest my history should be thought fictitious, I give the assurance that I can furnish the names of the thirty-two persons in the district of Parang-Koodjang alone, from whom in the course of one month thirty-six buffaloes had been stolen for the use of the Regent; or, still better, I can give the names of thirty-two persons in that district, who in one month dared to complain, and whose complaints, having been examined by Havelaar, were found to be true.[1]