Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/358

 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 beamyes, at daybreak she would be there Ah! Why had not she 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.

And he complained unjustly, for neither had the sun risen, nor had the eye of day cast a glance on the plain. The stars, it is true, were growing pale up there! ashamed as they were of the approaching end of their rule; strange colours were flowing over the tops of the mountains, which appeared darker as they contrasted sharply with places more brightly illuminated; here and there flowed something glowing in the east—arrows of gold and of fire that were shot hither and thither, parallel to the horizon;—but they disappeared again, and seemed to fall down behind the impenetrable curtain, which hid the day from the eyes of Saïdjah. Yet it grew lighter and lighter around him—he now saw the landscape, and could