Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/152

 prefer the coolness of the tree that grows there, to the shade of our woods?

“And even there to the North-West, over the sea, are many who ought to be our children, but who have left Lebak to wander in foreign countries with Kris, and Klewang, and gun! And there they die miserably; for the Government has power to beat the rebels.

“I ask you, chiefs of Lebak, why have many gone away, not to be buried where they were born? Why does the tree ask, ‘Where is the man whom I saw playing at my foot when a child ?’&#x202F;”

Havelaar waited here for a moment. To understand in some degree the impression which his words made, one ought to have heard and seen him. When he spoke of his child, there was a softness in his voice, something that was extremely touching, and which allured you to ask, “Where is the little one? I will at once kiss the child, that made his father speak so;” but when he soon afterwards passed with little order to the questions why Lebak was poor, and why so many inhabitants of these regions removed to other places, there was in his tone something which made you think of the noise that a drill makes when forcibly turned in hard wood. Yet he did not speak