Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/265

 when, after hearing the news told by Adinda’s little brothers, she had thought that Saïdyah had been carried off by the tiger. So often had she looked at that wound, thinking how deep the claw that entered so far into the tough thews of the buffalo would have been driven into the soft body of her child; and every time after she had laid fresh healing herbs on the wound, she had caressed the buffalo, and spoken some kindly words to it, so that the good and faithful animal might know how grateful a mother is! She now hoped with all her heart that the buffalo might have understood her, for then it would also have known the meaning of her tears when it was taken away to be killed, and it would have known that it was not Saïdyah’s mother who had ordered it to be killed.

Some time after this. Saïdyah’s father fled the country. For he greatly feared the punishment if he were not able to pay his land-rent, and he had no more heirlooms to buy a new buffalo with, as his parents had always lived in Parang Koodyang, and had therefore left him but little. And also the parents of his wife had always lived in the same district. After the loss of his last buffalo he had still kept going a few years by working with hired plough-beasts. But that is a very thankless form of labour, and especially galling to one who has been in possession of his own buffaloes. Saïdyah’s mother had died of grief; and then his father, in a despondent moment, ran away from Lebak and from Bantam, to look for work about Buitenzorg. He was flogged with the rattan cane for having left Lebak without a pass, and taken back by the police to Badoor. There he was thrown into the gaol because they took him to be mad, which would not have been altogether inexplicable, and because they feared that in a moment of half-madness he might run amuck or be guilty of some other misdeed. But he was not long in prison, for shortly after he died.

I do not know what became of the little brothers and sisters of Saïdyah. The little house where they had lived at Badoor was empty for awhile, and ere long it fell to pieces, as it was only built of bamboo and covered with palm-leaf. A little dust and dirt