Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/163

 The first thesis Havelaar left alone, but the second!

“Oh,” he exclaimed, as if he had to reply, although his guests had been too polite to express their theses, “I’ll explain. Tine is ”

“Dear Max!” she said deprecatingly.

This meant: “For heaven’s sake don’t tell these gentlemen why in your estimation I should be exalted above colds!”

Havelaar seemed to understand what Tine meant, for he answered:

“All right, my child! But, gentlemen, do you know that one is often mistaken in judging the claims of some people to the right of physical imperfection?”

I am certain that the guests had never heard of those claims.

“I knew in Sumatra a girl,” he went on, “the daughter of a datoo. Well, now, I held that had no right to this imperfection. And yet I saw her fall into the water during a shipwreck just like any other person. I, a human being, had to help her ashore.”

“But did you want her to be able to fly like a sea-mew?”

“Certainly, or no, she ought to have had no body. Shall I tell you how I made her acquaintance? It was in ’42. I was Controller of Natal were you ever there, Verbrugge?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then you know that they grow pepper there. The pepper-gardens are situated at Taloh-Baleh, to the north of Natal, on the coast. I had to inspect them, and as I had no knowledge of pepper, I took with me in the prao a datoo, who knew more about it. His daughter, then a child of thirteen, came with us. We sailed along the coast, and had a tedious journey ”

“And then you were shipwrecked?”

“Not at all, the weather was fine, too fine. The shipwreck you are thinking of took place much later. Otherwise I should not have