the pros and cons. If it was more to his advantage not to lie, he was quite ready to speak the truth.
“It is possible that the chest went overboard. But I know nothing. I saw nothing,” he said smoothly. Visser was satisfied and sat down again.
“Your claim has gone up a good deal from the five hundred ringits it started with,” the Resident remarked after a pause, during which he had been totting up the figures with the point of his pencil and trying to make a rough calculation. Kwe Tik Tjiang looked at the gusti, as though seeking his advice. The gusti went on smoking; the smell of cloves was wafted on to the verandah and he complacently surveyed his long finger-nails.
“Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” the Chinese said, “how could I presume to make a definite claim? I am a simple man and now a ruined man. My boat was good, it had a new cabin, it has been plundered and broken up and the copper stolen; now there are only a few planks left. I have specified my actual loss under oath. His Excellency will decide what compensation shall be paid me.”
The Resident sighed. The matter was even more troublesome and unpleasant than before. He almost regretted he had ever dug it up again. The gusti threw away the stump of his cigarette.
“The Chinaman says they told him at the court of Badung that they had a perfect right to do as they did and that thirty per cent of the wreckage went to the lord of Badung,” he said, without raising his voice. The Resident took off his spectacles and his eyes narrowed.
“Did the lord of Badung say that?” he asked quickly.
“One of his relatives, Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” Kwe Tik Tjiang said. There was a pause. Visser did not appear to be listening.
He had collected all the papers in his rather informal way and was studying them; a broad smile came and went over his perspiring face. “I have given you a hearing and will give your suit my closest attention,” the Resident said, rising to his feet to show that the hearing was concluded. The Chinese again glanced at the gusti to see what he ought to do next. Then with a low bow he withdrew. His long robe swept the dry ground of the garden as he returned to the waiting carriage.
“It would be best to make an investigation on the spot in Badung,” the gusti said. “The Chinese have slit tongues, it is true. But the people along the coast of Badung are brought up by their fathers to be robbers. That is true also.”
Visser broke into a laugh as he read. “He had a gold watch and chain too. And chain——” he repeated. “It must have been no common watch. A hundred and seventy-five guilders our friend wants for it.”
“A watch?” the Resident asked absent-mindedly. He was reflecting that the ship had sailed under the Dutch flag. Impossible to overlook that. “What were you saying, Visser?”
“The whole business stinks to heaven, Resident. This letter in Malay of the other Chinaman is a put-up job. You can see that a mile off. And the list of his losses is a pure invention, in my opinion.”
“What do you propose?” the Resident asked. The gusti stood by, thoroughly enjoying himself. How these white men perspired and how seriously they took everything. Visser tried to guess his superior’s wishes. He suppressed a sigh.
“If your Excellency thinks fit, I can of course go to Badung and see what really happened. The punggawa of Sanur is a supporter of ours. He will give me all necessary information. But, as I say, it is a fishy business, very fishy indeed. We would do better to steer clear of it.”
“The question turns on whether Badung has broken Clause II of the treaty by which it renounces the right of salvage,” replied the Resident. “I don’t see how we can steer clear of that, my dear Visser.”
The People of Taman Sari
WEEKS of hard work followed for Pak and his muscles grew hard and the sweat ran off him in streams. The rice was ripening in his west fields, the ears hung heavy on the stalks, whose green became first silver and then gold. Even his old father often came out in the late afternoon and sat on the narrow dyke and rejoiced in the sight. Life is sweet when the rice ripens and the heart is content. Pak made many clappers which he fastened to long poles and set up in his fields; they scared the birds and at the same time made enough din to excite his neighbors to fury. There was a festival in the rice temples of the subak on the day before the harvest, with many offerings, and the old women wound black kains about their thighs, with golden ones beneath hanging down in a train; they wore yellow shawls over one shoulder and had many flowers in their gray hair. They danced before each shrine with the offering-vessels held high in the left hand and the children sat nearby in great delight. Pak’s aunt danced, too, with a rapt expression, for though her breasts might be withered, she had been a temple dancer when she was a child, as Lambon was. Puglug went with her mat and took her place in the row of vendors at the temple gate and made more than two hundred kepengs. Pak took them from her, for the three ceremonies after the birth of little Klepon had cost a lot in rice and money and on the third day of the festival there was to be a cockfight to which he looked forward with the greatest excitement.
Pak’s father was a great connoisseur of cocks, and on the crossbeam of his balé there were three old lontars, where it was written in which corner of the cock-pit and against what sort of cock on any given day a bird had to fight in order to win. On the day before each cock-fight many people came to Pak’s place to ask the old man’s advice. He pretended to be reading out of his old books, although his eyes were dim and he had long ago forgotten how to read. But he knew the lontars by heart, for he had learnt them from his father when he was still a boy. The visitors brought presents with them of ducks’ eggs and coconuts and papayas, and Pak was proud of having so knowing a father. Altogether his family was distinguishing itself, although they were only poor people of no caste. The eye of the raja had looked with favor on Lambon, and when she danced the legong with two other children on the evening of the harvest festival, Pak could see that she delighted everybody, though no one said so. Meru, his young brother, moreover, was summoned to the palace to carve two new doors for the eleven-storeyed tower of its temple and he went out and bought himself a kris on the strength of it.
Pak dug beneath the floor of his house when Puglug was at the market and took out three ringits for the cock-fight. He gave only a little food to his red cock, so that he should be light and nimble, and putting him in a wicker hamper went off to the cock-pit. He hesitated a long time before deciding which cock to challenge and rejected a large black-and-white one, although his red bird was frantic to fight him. He went over in his mind all the advice his father had given him—to take the west corner and to pit his cock against a white bird without a single black feather. In spite of this he lost his cock and two of his ringits besides. The winner took his beautiful red cock away dead and Pak’s heart was heavy, though he gave no sign of it; he laughed and slapped the other man on the knee and made a number of jokes which he thought very good indeed.
He tried to make good his losses by staking his last ringit on the lusty black-and-white cock he had passed over as an opponent, and won. His courage rose and he made bet after bet and lost and soon there was not a kepeng left in his kain. He felt a strong inclination to stake his loin-cloth, Puglug’s present, but at the thought of her his courage failed him.
Early next day they began harvesting, Pak and his friends who belonged to the same harvest guild and his brothers and uncle. The women and children joined in, too, and there was much singing, although the work was hard. The sun blazed and the ears were prickly. Pak wore his large hat and a sleeved jacket woven out of fibre as a protection against the haulm. He saw to it that he worked all day long near Sarna and he asked her when she would
