Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/263

 at Natal, of which he was president, containing the condemnation of a certain Si Pamaga to the penalty of flogging, branding, and, I believe, twenty years’ hard labour, for attempting to murder the Toeankoe (an Indian functionary) of Natal.

“&#x202F;‘Read the procès-verbal of the session,’ said my predecessor, ‘and then you may judge whether my father-in-law will be believed at Batavia, when he there accuses Jang di Pertoean of high treason!’

“I read the documents. According to declarations of witnesses,, he had been bribed by Si Pamaga to murder at Natal the Toeankoe, his guardian Soetan, and the governing Controller. In order to execute this design, he had gone to the house of the Toeankoe, and had there commenced a conversation about a Sewah, with the servants who sat on the staircase of the inner-gallery, intending thereby to prolong his stay till he perceived the Toeankoe, who actually made his appearance very soon, surrounded by a number of relations and servants. Pamaga had fallen upon the Toeankoe with his ‘sewah,’ but, from unknown circumstances, had not been able to execute his criminal design. The Toeankoe, much frightened, jumped out of the window, and Pamaga fled; he hid himself in the wood, and was a few days afterwards taken by the Natal police.