fused to take part in a game which she had played with other children-boys and girls-only a short time before. There she had given him the melatti. He sat down at the foot of the tree, and looked at the stars; and when he saw a shooting star he accepted it as a welcome of his return to Badoer, and he thought whether Adinda would now be asleep, and whether she had rightly cut the moons on her rice floor. It would be such a grief to him if she had omitted a moon, as if thirty-six were not enough! And he wondered whether she had made nice sarongs and slendangs. And he asked himself, too, who would now be dwelling in her father's house? And he thought of his youth, and of his mother; and how that buffalo had saved him from the tiger, and he thought of what would have become of Adinda if that buffalo had been less faithful! He paid much attention to the sinking of the stars in the west, and as each star disappeared in the horizon, he calculated how much nearer the sun was to his rising in the east, and how much nearer he himself was to seeing Adinda. For she would certainly come at the first beam-yes, at daybreak she would be there. Ah! Why had she not already come the day before? It pained him that she had not anticipated the supreme moment which had lighted up his soul for three years with inexpressible brightness; and, unjust as he was in the selfishness of his love, it appeared to him that Adinda ought to have been there waiting for him, who complained before the time appointed, that he had to wait for her. Saïdjah had not learnt to pray, and it would have been a pity to teach him; for a more holy prayer, more fervent thanksgiving, than was in the mute rapture of his soul, could not be conceived in human language. He would not go to Badoerto see Adinda in reality seeming to him less pleasurable than the expectation of seeing her again. He sat down at the foot of the ketapan and his eyes wandered over the scenery. Nature smiled at him, and seemed to welcome him as a mother welcoming the return of her child, and as she pictures her joy by voluntary remembrance of past grief, when showing what she has preserved as a keepsake during his absence. So Saidjah was delighted to see again so many spots that were witnesses of his short life. But his eyes or his thoughts might wander as they pleased, yet his looks and longings always reverted to the path which leads from Badoer to the ketapan tree. All that his senses could observe was called Adinda. He saw the abyss to the left, where the earth is so yellow, where once a young buffalo sank down into the depth, they had descended with strong rattan cords, and Adinda's father had been the bravest. Oh, how she clapped her hands, Adinda! And there, further on, on the other side, where the wood of cocoa trees waved over the cottages of the village, there somewhere, Si-Oenah had fallen out of a tree and died. How his mother cried, "because Si-Oenah was still such a little one," she lamented, as if she would have been less grieved if Si-Oenah had been taller. But he was small, that is true, for he was smaller and more fragile than Adinda. Nobody walked upon the little road which leads from Badoer to the tree. By and by she would come: it was yet very early. And still there was nobody on the path leading from Badoer to the ketapan. Oh! she must have fallen asleep towards morning, tired of watching during the night, of watching for many nights :—she had not slept for weeks: so it was! Should he rise and go to Badoer!-No, that would be doubting her arrival. Should he call that man who was driving his buffalo to the field? That man was too far off, and, moreover, Saïdjah would speak to no one about Adinda, would ask no one after Adinda. He would see her again, he would see her alone, he would see her first. Oh, surely, surely she would soon come! Like a wounded stag Saïdjah flew along the path leading from the ketapan to the village where Adinda lived. He saw nothing and heard nothing; and yet he could have heard something, for there were men standing in the road at the entrance of the village, who cried, "Saïdjah, Saïdjah!" But was it his hurry, his eagerness, that prevented him from finding Adinda's house? He had already rushed to the end of the road, through the village, and like one mad he returned and beat his head, because he must have passed her house without seeing it. But again he was at the entrance of the village, and-O God, was it a dream? Again he had not found the house of Adinda. Again he flew back and suddenly stood still, seized his head with both his hands to press away the madness that overcame him, and cried aloud: "Drunk, drunk; I am drunk!" And the women of Badoer came out of their houses, and saw with sorrow poor Saidjah standing there, for they knew him, and understood that he was looking for the house of Adinda, and they knew that there was no house of Adinda in the village of Badoer. For, when the district chief of Parang-Koodjang had taken away Adinda's father's buffaloes I told you, reader! that my narrative was monoto nous. - Adinda's mother died of grief, and her baby sister died because she had no mother, and had no one to suckle her. And Adinda's father, who feared to be punished for not paying his land taxes I know, I know that my tale is monotonous. --had fled out of the country; he had taken Adinda and her brothers with him. But he had heard how the father of Saïdjah had been punished at Buitenzorg with stripes for leaving Badoer without a passport. And therefore Adinda's father had not gone to Buitenzorg nor to the Preangan, nor to Bantam. He had gone to Tjilangkahan, the quarter of Lebak bordering on the sea. There he had concealed himself in the woods, and waited for the arrival of Pa Ento, Pa Lontah, Si-Oenah, Pa Ansive, Abdoel Isma, and some others that had been robbed of their buffaloes by the district chief of ParangKoodjang, and all of whom feared punishment for not paying their land taxes. There they had at night taken possession of a fishing boat, and had gone to sea. They had steered towards the west, and kept the country to the right of them as far as Java Head: then they had steered northwards till they came in sight of Prince's Island, and sailed round the east coast of that island, and from there to the Lampoons. Such at least was the way that people told each other in whispers in Lebak, when there was a question of buffalo robbery and unpaid land taxes. But Saïdjah did not well understand what they said to him; he did not even quite understand the news of his father's death. There was a buzzing in his ears, as if a gong had been sounded in his head he felt the blood throbbing convulsively through the veins of his temples, that threatened to yield under the pressure of such severe distention. He spoke not, and looked about as one stupefied, without seeing what was around and about him; and at last he began to laugh horribly. An old woman led him to her cottage, and took care of the poor fool. Soon he laughed less horribly, but still did not speak. But during the night the inhabitants of the hut were frightened at his voice, when he sang monotonously: "I do not know where I shall die," and some inhabitants of Badoer put money together to bring a sacrifice to the bojajas [crocodiles] of the Tji-Udjung for the cure of Saïdjah, whom they thought insane. But he was not insane. For upon a certain night when the moon was very clear, he rose from the baleh-baleh [couch], softly left the house, and sought the place where Adinda had lived. This was not easy, because so many houses had fallen down; but he seemed to recognize the place by the width of the angle which some rays of light formed through the trees, at their meeting in his eye, as the sailor measures by lighthouses and the tops of mountains. Yes, there it ought to be: there Adinda had lived! Stumbling over half-rotten bamboo and pieces of the fallen roof, he made his way to the sanctuary which he sought. And, indeed, he found something of the still standing pagger [inclosure], near to which the baleh-baleh of Adinda had stood, and even the pin of bamboo was still with its point in that pagger, the pin on which she hung her dress when she went to bed. But the baleh-baleh had fallen down like the house, and was almost turned to dust. He took a handful of it, and pressed it to his opened lips, and breathed very hard. The following day he asked the old woman who had taken care of him where the rice floor was which stood in the grounds of Adinda's house. The woman rejoiced to hear him speak, and ran through the village to seek the floor. When she could point out the new proprietor to Saïdjah, he followed her silently, and being brought to the rice floor, he counted thereupon thirty-two lines. Then he gave the woman as many piasters as were required to buy a buffalo, and left Badoer. At Tjilangkahan, he bought a fishing boat, and, after having sailed two days, arrived in the Lampoons, where the insurgents were in insurrection against the Dutch rule. He joined a troop of Badoer men, not so much to fight as to seek Adinda; for he had a tender heart, and was more disposed to sorrow than to bitterness. One day that the insurgents had been beaten, he wandered through a village that had just been taken by the Dutch army, and was therefore in flames. Saïdjah knew that the troop that had been destroyed there consisted for the most part of Badoer men. He wandered like a ghost among the houses, which were not yet burned down, and found the corpse of Adinda's father with a bayonet wound in the breast. Near him Saïdjah saw the three murdered brothers of Adinda, still boyschildren—and a little further lay the corpse of Adinda, naked, and horribly mutilated. A small piece of blue linen had penetrated into the gaping wound in the breast, which seemed to have made an end to a long struggle. Then Saidjah went to meet some soldiers who were driving, at the point of the bayonet, the surviving insurgents into the fire of the burning houses; he embraced the broad bayonets, pressed forward with all his might, and still repulsed the soldiers, with a last exertion, until their weapons were buried to the sockets in his breast. A little time afterwards there was much rejoicing at Batavia for the new victory, which so added to the laurels of the Dutch-Indian army. And the Governor wrote that tranquillity had been restored in the Lampoons; the king of Holland, enlightened by his statesmen, again rewarded so much heroism with many orders of knighthood. And probably thanksgivings mounted to heaven from the hearts of the saints in churches and tabernacles, at the news that "the Lord of hosts" had again fought under the banner of Holland. LIBERTY. BY WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. [1805-1879.] HIGH walls and huge the body may confine, And vigilant keepers watch his devious ways; |