Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/244

 about the house to seek the protection of her Max! Then she would beckon him, and he would rise to call the complainants before him. Most of them were from the district of Parang-Koodyang, where the Regent’s son-in-law was paramount Chief, and though that Chief doubtless did not neglect to take his portion of the extortions, yet it was known to all and sundry that he nearly always robbed in the name and on behalf of the Regent. It was touching to see how all those poor people trusted in Havelaar’s chivalry, and were convinced that he would not call them the next day to repeat publicly what the previous night or evening they had said in his room. For this, of course, would have meant ill-treatment for all of them, and death for many! Havelaar noted down what they had told him, and then ordered the complainants to go back to their villages. He promised that justice would be done, provided they did not rebel, or, as most of them intended, leave the district. Most often he was shortly afterwards at the place where the wrongs had been committed; indeed, frequently he had already been there and investigated the complaint, usually during the night, before even the complainant himself had been able to return to his home. In this way he visited, throughout this extensive division, villages at a twenty hours’ journey from Rangkas-Betoong, without either the Regent or even Controller Verbrugge knowing that he was absent from the head-centre. It was his intention in this manner to avert the danger of revenge that threatened the complainants, and at the same time to save the Regent the ignominy of a public inquiry, which, under the present Assistant-Resident, would certainly not, as before, have ended in a retraction of the complaint. So he still hoped that the Chiefs might turn from the dangerous road they had trodden so long, and in that case he would have contented himself with demanding indemnities for the victims of robbery in so far as it was possible to make good the losses sustained.

But every time after again speaking to the Regent, he became more convinced that the promises of amendment were idle, and he was greatly distressed at the failure of his efforts.