“I have told the sahibs how greatly I venerate the memory of the Counselor Black, their uncle; as Allah knows, it is with reason. When a little slave-boy, he bought me from a harsh, cruel master, and being pleased with my grateful behavior, and considering I possessed talents, caused me to be educated for a clerk—that is, had me taught the Dutch and English languages. More, he would have given me my freedom, but feared the jealousy of his fellow-rulers, to whom it was known that I was the descendant of a prince, and one too, once the direst and most hated foe of their countrymen.”
“You, Prabu, descended from a prince!—a real, right-down, royal highness?” asked Martin.
“Have patience, sahib,” he replied; “for to the history of that noble man I shall soon come. In the Dutch books,” he continued, “I read the story of the great deeds done by the Hollanders when they fought to throw off the tyranny of Philip, King of Spain, and how that, by virtue and bravery, from a nation of slaves they became a free people: for this I could have loved them. But in other books, I read that in the East—except in China and Japan, where, for the sake of gold, they behaved as truculent slaves—they have been tyrants, more hateful and cruel than him whose yoke they overthrew; and I first asked myself, whether God had placed hearts in the breasts of Dutchmen, and then hated them. The latter was for deeds done to me and mine; but the sahibs shall judge for themselves.
“When the first Dutchman, under one Houtman, found their way to the Archipelago, in the year 1595 of the Christian era, the island of Java was divided into several kingdoms—Cheribon, Martaram, Bantam, and Jacatra. It was not until thirty years after the arrival of these locusts, that the supreme rule was held chiefly by a great Susunan of the House of Martaram. Upon their coming, they were received by the Javans and other islanders with open arms; but these Dutch, aye, and the Portuguese and English, who were already established in the Archipelago, and almost as bad, must have been the scum of their own countries; for, taking advantage of the simplicity of the people, they cheated and robbed them at every opportunity—nay, behaved like demons, who considered all less cunning than themselves as birds and beasts of the forest—lawful prey.
“Thus, even the first fleet of these adventurers made war upon Bantam and Saduya, and at Madura murdered the king and his family, while they were paying them a friendly visit on board the fleet. Surely such arts should have opened the eyes of the native princes to the real character of their visitors, and have caused them to prevent the coming of others!—but not so. Fresh fleets, invited by the gains of their countrymen, came; and, by making great professions of amity and moderation, were permitted to establish themselves in the kingdom of Jacatra. In gratitude for this concession, the pirates arose against the prince, subdued his kingdom, and built Batavia upon the site of his capital. Having obtained a firm footing in the land, they commenced a series of intrigues, setting the native princes one against the other, occasionally aiding each, but keeping faith with neither. Thus they gradually became virtually masters of the country, although many of the native princes were permitted to hold their rank and titles. Among these was the great Susunan Mangkorat, whom they had helped to the throne against his younger brother. During this reign happened what the Dutch call the rebellion of Surapati.
“That Surapati, sahibs, was my ancestor, and is a name held holy in the memory of every true-blooded islander.”
“Was he the born prince, then, of whom you told us?” asked Martin.
“Not so, sahib—not born a prince; far nobler, a self-made one.”
“A successful rebel, then,” said my brother; but, not noting this, Prabu continued:—
“Surapati, when a child of seven years of age, was brought from Bali among the crowd of slaves who were annually taken into Batavia by the Dutch, whose ruin would have been brought about by their own tyranny, had there been six other such men in the island. Well, Surapati was bought by a Dutchman of the name of Hesse, for whom he toiled, and was well treated, till, forgetting that he was a slave, he dared to fall in love with his master’s daughter—a crime so heinous in the eyes of the Hollanders, that, upon detection, the slave was severely flogged, and ordered to be placed in the public stocks, where, with sixty of his countrymen, he had to endure the scoffs and personal insults of Europeans; but, sahibs, the stocks could not prevent his brain from thinking, nor his heart from beating. Thus the wood that galled his limbs kindled in his breast a hatred that, to his last day, never became quenched, and which, dying, he bequeathed to his descendants, in whose hearts it burns, even now, as fiercely as ever.