Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/125

 without fear and without hate, that I should be ‘a good Assistant-Resident’ I also wish to do what is my duty.

“Chiefs of Lebak! Who then shall do justice in Bantan Kedool?

“But should there happen to be among us those who neglect their duty for gain, who sell justice for money, or take the buffalo from the poor man, and the fruit that belongs to those who are hungry who shall punish them?

“If one of you knew it, he would prevent it. And the Regent would not suffer such things to happen in his Regency. And I also shall prevent it wherever I can. But if neither you, nor the Adhipatti, nor I knew it

“Chiefs of Lebak! Who then shall do justice in Bantan-Kedool?

“Listen to me, and I will tell you how then justice shall be done.

“There comes a time when our women and children will weep while they are preparing our pall, and the passer-by will say: ‘There is a death in this house!’ Then whoever arrives in the villages will bring tidings of the death of the one that is no more, and whoso harbours him will ask: ‘Who the man that died?’ and it will be said:

He was good and just. He spoke justice and drove not the complainer from his door. He listened patiently to those that came to him and returned what had been taken from them. And if a man could not drive the plough through the earth because the buffalo had been stolen from the stable, he helped him to find the buffalo. And where the daughter had been taken from the house of the mother, he found the thief and brought back the daughter. And where the labourer had laboured, he withheld not his wage from him, and he took not the fruit from him who had planted the tree. He clothed not himself with the garment that should have covered another, nor fed himself with the food that belonged to the poor.’

“Then they will say in the villages: ‘Allah is great, Allah has taken him unto Himself. His will be done a good man has died.’

“And again the passer-by will stop before a house and ask: