Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/425



“Your Excellency, blood cleaves to the money saved out of the Indian salary thus earned! Once more I beg for a moment’s interview, be it this night, be it early to-morrow! And again I do not ask this for myself, but for the cause which I defend, the cause of justice and humanity, which is, at the same time, the cause of good policy.

“If your Excellency can reconcile it with your conscience, to depart from here without hearing me, mine will be quiet in the persuasion that I have endeavoured all that I could to prevent the sad bloody events, which will soon be the consequence of the self-willed ignorance in which the Government is left as regards the population

(Signed) “”

Havelaar waited that evening. He waited the whole night. He had hoped that perhaps anger at the tone of his letter would bring about what he had tried in vain to obtain by moderation and patience.

His hope was vain. The Governor-General departed without having heard Havelaar

Another Excellency had retired to the mother country to rest!

Havelaar wandered about poor and neglected. He sought