Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/204

 of which he was the President, sentencing a certain Si Pamaga to the penalty of the lash and branding-iron, and, I think, twenty years’ hard labour, for attempted murder of the Tooankoo of Natal.

Just read the report of the Court-session,’ said my predecessor, ‘and then judge whether my father-in-law will not be believed in Batavia, when he there charges Yang di Pertooan with high treason!’

“I read the documents. According to the declarations of witnesses and ‘the confession of the accused,’ Si Pamaga had been bribed to murder at Natal the Tooankoo, the latter’s foster-father, Sootan Salim, and the Controller in charge. He had, in order to carry out this purpose, gone to the house of the Tooankoo, and had there, with the servants who were sitting on the steps of the veranda, started a conversation about a sewah, with the object of prolonging his stay until he should notice the Tooankoo, who, indeed, soon showed himself, surrounded by some of his relatives and servants. Pamaga had run towards the Tooankoo with his sewah, but had, owing to unknown circumstances, not been able to carry out his project. The Tooankoo, frightened, had jumped out of the window, and Pamaga had taken flight. He had hidden himself in the woods, and been caught a few days after by the Natal police.

“The accused being asked what had induced him to make this attempt and to plan the murder of Sootan Salim and the Controller of Natal, answered that he ‘was bribed to it by Sootan Adam, on behalf of the latter’s brother, Yang di Pertooan of Mandhéling.’

Is this explicit or not?’ asked my predecessor. ‘The Resident signed the order of execution, and the sentence was carried out as regards the lash and the branding, and Si Pamaga is now on the way to Padang, to be sent thence to Java with a chain-gang. At the same time with him will arrive at Batavia the depositions of the Court, and there one will be able to judge what sort of man it is on