DECAY OF THE DESSA.--ARREST OF PAK ARDJAN.
This first fairly successful attempt upon the little dessa was
systematically repeated, and every evening the inspiriting tones of
the cymbal resounded on the green of Kaligaweh, and every evening also
the temptations described in the former chapter were renewed. All this
might cost Lim Yang Bing some money at first; but he knew well enough
that he would be the gainer in the end and that his capital would soon
return to him with ample interest. By degrees it became less and less
necessary to allow the gamblers to win; and it was not very long before
such a thing only happened now and again so that the hope of gain might
not die out altogether. Gradually the poor deluded people began to
lose more and more; and one bundle of rice after another passed into
the hands of the sharpers who, it must be said, gave liberal prices;
and allowed somewhat more than the full market value for the produce.
But it was not only the spirit of gambling which had thus been
aroused in Kaligaweh; together with that degrading passion--perhaps in
consequence of it--the abuse of opium began to increase to an alarming
extent. Six months, indeed, had scarcely elapsed before it became a
notorious fact that a very considerable part of the population had
taken to opium smoking; and--sadder still--that the opium farmers
found powerful allies in the women of the dessa, who very soon began
to perceive the influence which the drug had upon their husbands,
and who, instead of trying to arrest the unfortunate creatures on
their road to ruin, rather encouraged their fatal passion.
One reason of this was, that the terrible effects of the poison did
not at once manifest themselves. No--the enemy made his approaches
in the dark, he advanced slowly but surely.
At first the quantity used was but very small, a couple of matas
or so a day, not even as much as that, were for those primitive
people who were wholly unaccustomed to the drug quite sufficient to
procure blissful rest and delightful sleep, and to call up visions
of the houris with which Mohammed has peopled his paradise. Double
that quantity would produce exuberant gaiety and excite to the most
inordinate passions. And that peace, that excitement, that bliss could
be purchased at the opium-store for fourteen cents (about 2 1/2d.) a
mata. It was indeed dirt-cheap!
But--though in the beginning of his downward course, the opium smoker
could rest satisfied with so moderate an allowance--albeit even this
did not fail to make a breach in his modest budget seeing that the
expenditure was pretty constant--presently his constitution began to
get seasoned to it, and it took a much greater quantity of the poison
to have the desired effect. At first a man would only occasionally
indulge and take up the bedoedan (opium pipe) say, once a week; but
gradually his nervous system began to grow accustomed to the stimulant,
and then a craving for the poison began to be felt, so that already
several men could be pointed out who, as soon as the influence of the
narcotic had passed off, were dull, downcast, nervous and restless;
and who, in consequence, felt utterly miserable. There was but one
means to raise them out of their state of depression; and so they
would take up the bedoedan again and swallow another dose of the
poison. And thus by degrees it came to pass that at length there
was with them scarcely an interval between one fit of intoxication
and the next. That thus the prosperity of the dessa was inevitably
destined to disappear did not admit of the slightest doubt.
Not only was the actual expense of this habitual indulgence greater
than the means of many would allow; but the fatal habit engendered
other cravings which also had to be gratified, and which helped
to sweep away the little that opium had left. Moreover the love of
work--never under any circumstances too strong in a tropical land--was
first seriously impaired, then wholly extinguished, and, when not
under the influence of the opiate the smoker was a slovenly, drowsy,
lazy and objectless being, wholly unfit for the least exertion, whom
nothing could rouse into activity but fresh indulgence in the baneful
remedy. Indeed the sanitary condition of the people of Kaligaweh
had degenerated with such alarming rapidity, that the most casual
observer could not fail to be struck by the change. If, in days gone
by, a European visited the dessa--which it is true but very seldom
happened--he could not fail to admire the healthy and sturdy look of
its inhabitants; but now he constantly came upon men and women whose
ghastly appearance could not but excite in him the deepest pity. There
could be no mistake about it, at a single glance it was evident that
he had before him the victims of the terrible opium-fiend.
Those grey livid faces from which every trace of the Oriental
bronze tint had faded; that wrinkled skin which looked like
parchment overheated without being scorched; those wasted angular
features which gave to the head the appearance of an unsightly
skull; those deep sunken eyes with their jaded look and the dark
blue rings around them; those stooping forms and receding chests;
that extraordinary emaciation of the upper body, of which every rib
could be counted, and which conveyed an idea of transparency, for the
specimens which one met had hardly a rag about them; barely a bit of
dirty clothing wrapped round their loins to hide their nakedness;
that deep distressing cough which came, with hollow sound, from
the labouring breast and spoke of lungs wasted with disease whilst
it seemed to shake to pieces the entire frame; those spindle legs,
so poor, so meagre, that they seemed hardly able to totter along
under the weight of the body they had to support; all these formed
the stereotyped picture of defaced humanity and bore incontestable
witness to the protracted sufferings and unfathomable misery which
had reduced these poor blighted creatures to mere walking skeletons.
When later on Singomengolo revisited the dessa where he first saw
the light, and where, as a thanksoffering, he had planted the most
terrible curse, his lip must have curled with a Satanic smile. Yes,
all he could now see there; those cocoa-nut trees overgrown with moss
and parasites; those orchards neglected and decayed; those unwatered
rice-fields and half-tilled fields; those two or three oxen whose
lean and sickly appearance spoke plainly of neglect and starvation;
yes, all these things were his work. It was his fault that now the
harvest was scanty and worthless; it was his fault that even that
wretched harvest had been pawned long before the ani anis had so much
as begun their work; it was his fault that clothes, furniture, tools,
everything, had been sold or pawned for next to nothing, and that
all had been swallowed up in the bottomless pit of that national curse.
But Babah Lim Yang Bing the opium farmer and his friends Ong Sing Beh
and Kouw Thang the keepers of the pawnshop and of the gambling-booth
were thriving wonderfully, and by their glorious aid the Dutch
Treasury also was doing well in comparison, at least, with former
days when those three noble sources of income contributed little or
nothing to that unsatiable Moloch, the Revenue. Gaily therefore might
the Dutch flag wave in the breeze, and proudly might the Dutch arms
display their manly motto "Je Maintiendrai" above the opium-den,
the gambling-booth and the pawn-shop--that much worshipped Trinity
which forms the most elaborate system of extortion under which ever
a poor conquered race has groaned.
Among the first of the infatuated wretches which fell into the pit so
carefully dug for them, was Pak Ardjan, the father of the mate of the
schooner brig Kiem Ping Hin. But a short time ago he was looked upon
as a thriving and well-to-do Javanese peasant, the possessor of a yoke
of powerful oxen, now he had gambled, rioted and smoked away house and
goods and had plunged his helpless family into the most hideous misery.
Where was now the pleasant little cottage with its neat hedge of
golden-yellow bamboo and its clean dark-brown roof of thatch made of
leaves? Where was that comfortable little house in which Pak Ardjan
was wont to sit with wife and children, passing his days in peace
and cheerfully looking forward to the future?
Alas! the miserable hovel which now barely sheltered the once happy
family was small, low, close, in fact a ruin. The single room of which
it consisted was pervaded by that offensive musty smell which decaying
bamboo generally emits. One look at the walls, the lower parts of
which had already rotted away while the upper were rapidly crumbling
under the attacks of the white ant, and one glance at the roof which
was in one place bulging inwards and in another fast going to dust,
was quite sufficient to account for the closeness of the air. On
the bits of matting, which covered the still more filthy floor, the
children were rolling about, many of them naked as they were born,
while the mother and father, if he happened to be at home, clad in
rags which were never washed and were leaving their bodies in tatters
sat crouching on the floor stupidly gazing at the scene of desolation
before them. Gazing! aye, if the stony mechanical stare could be called
by that name. For the father had lost all consciousness of the hopeless
misery of his family. The frightful selfishness produced by the abuse
of opium: the constantly growing indifference to all things round
about him, even to his own wife and children; the rapidly increasing
love of idleness, and incapacity for work, for care, for exertion in
fact of any kind which at length made him utterly unable to think of
anything by day or night except of how he might gratify his passion
and the other cravings it engendered, and for which he was driven to
sacrifice everything. All this had clouded his sight, and as a man
stone-blind he was tottering on the very brink of a precipice.
Whilst he was in the first lethargic state brought on by the moderate
use of the narcotic, he would be quiet, peaceful and contented, and
would dose away and dream and build up for himself--for himself only--a
paradise in which none but sensual pictures presented themselves to
his eye and to his mind. Then as he continued to smoke, and when he
reached the next stage--the stage of frenzy--he would, regardless
of his children's presence, shamelessly pursue his wife round the
cabin, for at such times she seemed to him the houri of his dreams,
and then, in that wretched hovel at any hour of the night or day,
scenes would be enacted such as the poor innocent children ought never
to have witnessed. For, at such times the man was like a brute beast,
wholly incapable of bridling his degraded passions.
Then the final paroxysm would be reached, and the effect of the
dreadful poison would begin to wear off; and then the wretched creature
would fall into a state of utter prostration, of annihilation which
for himself, and worse still for his family, was indeed a cup of
woe. Then the smoker would begin to tremble all over, then he became
restless and uneasy, then his entire nervous system seemed to be out
of joint, then every limb would be racked with pain--then he would
moan most piteously, and cry like a child, sobbing and declaring that
he was at the point of death and then--yes; then there was but one
single means to relieve him and to bring him back out of that state
of intolerable agony, and that was once again to grasp the pipe and
to fight the disease with the poison which had caused it. Then the
wife had to run out to buy opium--where the money was to come from,
that was her business.
Then one of the children had to knead and roll the opium-balls
and another little one had to hold the lamp which, for that kind of
smoking, is indispensable, and a third had to make strong coffee which
was generally got by theft out of the government-plantations. And if,
from sheer want of money, all this could not be done--nay even when it
was not done quite quickly enough for the impatience of the nervous
sufferer--then the wretched man would fill the hut with wailing and
lamentation, with curses and revilings which drove its inmates to
the verge of despair.
Amidst such surroundings as these Ardjan had grown up, and although
he had not fallen as deeply as his father, yet in the years of his
childhood, the age which is most susceptible of good or evil, his
heart and mind had received the impressions which made it possible
for him later on to take service on board a smuggling-brig, and to
make him feel towards the company which employed him in its nefarious
transactions, such loyalty as we heard him express in the djaga monjet
before Lim Ho the son of Lim Yang Bing the opium farmer at Santjoemeh.
So long as Ardjan, who was the eldest son, was but a child, the family
was plunged in the depths of bestial degradation; but when he had grown
up and, after having served awhile as a sailor in a government vessel,
had gone on board the Kiem Ping Hin, things began somewhat to mend
at home in the dessa. This was especially the case when young Ardjan,
who had a very good head on his shoulders, was promoted to be mate of
the smuggling brig. In that capacity he had constant opportunities
of handling the cargo, and of such a drug as opium, which takes up
but little space, he could very easily now and then appropriate to
himself quantities of comparatively considerable value. This he did
the more readily, and with the less reluctance, as his notions on
the meum and tuum were of the vaguest description. The opium thus
pilfered he used to deliver to his father who, in this manner, was
enabled, not only fully to indulge in his ruling passion, but also to
dispose of the superfluity to his neighbours. In this illegal traffic
Pak Ardjan frequently made considerable gains, which, however, far
from being of any substantial benefit to his empoverished household,
would always be squandered with lavish extravagance.
Such was the state of things when Resident van Gulpendam gave Lim Yang
Bing the hint that Pak Ardjan was, in the estimation of the police,
held to be a notorious smuggler.
From what has been said above it is evident that what the Resident
had said was true, the police had their suspicions, and had often
been on the old smuggler's track, without ever having been able to
bring the offence home to him. It must be said indeed, that so long
as Ardjan was on board the Kiem Ping Hin they made no very determined
efforts to convict his father. Equally true it was that Pak Ardjan,
not knowing at the time that his son lay under suspicion of having
brought on shore the discovered opium, had laid a formal accusation
against Lim Ho, on account of the brutal manner in which he had
treated his son. Now, the old opium-smoker had taken this step,
not because he felt any pity for his son, nor because he wished to
be revenged upon the Chinaman for the wrong he had thus inflicted
upon one of his family--still less had he done so because he was
anxious that the offender should receive condign punishment. Oh no,
Pak Ardjan was not actuated by any such motives as these.
A short time before his adventure at the Moeara Tjatjing Ardjan had
procured for his father a few katties of opium. So long as the supply
lasted, the old man had not troubled himself in the least about the
treatment his son had undergone; but when he saw that the supply was
beginning to run low, then he began to look with apprehension to the
future, and especially alarmed was he when he heard that Ardjan had
exchanged the hospital for the jail. His poor muddled brain fancied
that he might hasten Ardjan's release by making a charge against Lim
Ho; and he had been further encouraged to take the step by the advice
of a pettifogging lawyer, who thought that, in an action against the
rich son of the still more wealthy opium-farmer, he had discovered a
very pretty little vein of gold. Thus the charge was, in the proper
form, laid before the Court at Santjoemeh and a prosecution against
Lim Ho was ordered accordingly.
This matter the president of the Council had put into the hands of his
young colleague, van Nerekool, and he, most anxious that justice should
be done and that the miscreant should pay the legal penalty for his
offence; and glad also, thus to be able to perform the promise which he
had made to Anna, the fair daughter of the Resident, that he would do
his best to save Dalima's lover, had readily undertaken the case, and
was confident that he would be able to bring it to a successful issue.
But, on a certain afternoon, while the sun was yet high in the
heavens, Pak Ardjan had gone to have a look at his store of opium
which he had secreted by burying it deep in the ground, and heaping
over the place a heavy layer of stones. Much to his regret he found,
upon opening his store, that, at the most, he had but a couple of taël
left. These he proceeded to carry home with him; for he had promised
some opium-smoking friends to let them have a supply that evening,
and, as they were good customers and paid him handsomely, he would
not disappoint them.
When he reached home his children informed him that Singomengolo had
made his appearance in the dessa, and had been making sundry enquiries
about him. The appearance itself of the man in the dessa, was nothing
very extraordinary, nor was it, under the circumstances, strange that
Pak Ardjan's name should have been mentioned by him. But somehow or
other an accountable feeling of distrust came over the old man which
impelled him to try and hide the opium he had about him. Now if he
had been in his normal condition he would straightway have returned
to the ravine and buried his treasure safely in its former hiding
place, before further steps could be taken against him. But the fit of
depression was on him, his nerves were again beginning to play tricks
with him, his mental powers were, as usual after prolonged abstinence,
growing confused--in short he was bordering on that stage in which he
would need another dose of opium to pick him up. Accordingly, he set
aside a couple of matas for his own use, and, having carefully wrapped
the remainder in nipah-leaves, he thrust the packets for concealment
behind the attapa-leaves which formed the crazy roof of his cabin.
This done, it was the old story again, and the whole family had to
set to work to minister to him in his disgusting opium debauch.
But as he lay stretched there on the bench, and just as he was
beginning to light his third pipe, before that, therefore, he was
wholly under the influence of the poppy-juice, Singomengolo suddenly
appeared on the door-step, accompanied by four or five policemen,
and by the two Chinamen, who kept the opium-store. The instant he
crossed the threshold, the bandoelan knew what was going on within,
although Pak Ardjan had started up, and with some dexterity, had
managed to hide his pipe under the filthy pillow which is inevitably
present on every couch, and his children had secreted the lamp and
the yet unsmoked opium.
The sickly sweetish smell, however, which pervaded the close stuffy
room could not deceive anyone, least of all a bandoelan so thoroughly
experienced as was the agent of the opium-farmer.
"There has been opium smoked here!" he cried in a peremptory tone,
as he and his followers made their way into the cabin.
"Oh no," stammered Pak Ardjan in dismay, "oh no, indeed there has
not!" while his wife and children, like so many frightened sheep,
huddled together in a corner.
"Guard the door and the windows," cried Singo to his policemen, and
then turning again upon Pak Ardjan he repeated more sternly even than
before, "You have been smoking opium, I tell you!"
"Oh no, indeed I have not," replied the unfortunate man.
"Why there is the pipe," cried the opium hunter, as he triumphantly
drew the corpus delicti from under the pillow. "Why here is the pipe,
and quite hot too!"
Pak Ardjan already beside himself with fear felt completely crushed
at this evident proof of his guilt.
"Where is the opium?" asked Singomengolo in threatening tones.
Pak Ardjan returned no answer.
"Well, never mind," said Singo, "we shall soon find it," and a horrid
smile crossed his lips.
He made a signal to the Chinamen, and to the policemen who were not
engaged in watching the door and windows; and then ensued a search, we
may call it a hunt, the description of which may well seem incredible
to those who do not know that such frightful scenes are not at all
of uncommon occurrence.
Under the couch, under the mats which covered the floor, they
searched, they rooted up the very floor of the cabin, they poked
about under the stove and in the ashes of that very primitive kind
of cooking-apparatus; pillows were rent open, and their contents
scattered on the floor; the few boxes and baskets were torn open,
and the noisome rags they contained were shaken and contemptuously
flung aside; the poor miserable furniture, a few pots and pans, the
rice-kettle, the tombok-block, the rice-panniers, even the sirih-box
were turned over, but nothing--nothing could they find.
Singomengolo was angry. Now he ordered a body-search to be made.
First they seized upon Pak Ardjan and, though he offered some
resistance, he was, with sundry kicks and blows, very soon shaken
out of the few filthy rags which hung about him, and, in his hideous
leanness, he stood there naked before the eyes of his family. The
sense of decency, which never leaves even the most utterly degraded,
made the poor man cower down moaning to the ground trying to hide
his nakedness from the eyes of his children.
Then came the mother's turn, and the turn of the children--some of
them girls from seven to fourteen years of age. Regardless alike of
the mother's feelings or of the innocence of childhood, the inhuman
monsters proceeded in their search, and a scene was then enacted so
hideous, so disgusting, that over it we must draw a veil.
The children cried, the girls sobbed and wept, the mother shrieked
under this base and violent treatment, it was of no avail. But
presently, one of the policemen rudely seized upon the eldest daughter,
poor little Sarina, a girl of fourteen; she, in her fright, dropped
her sarong, and uttered a scream of terror. That cry made Pak Ardjan
bound to his feet, madly he flung himself upon the cowardly wretch,
with one wrench he dragged the fellow's sabre from its scabbard,
and with its edge he dealt the miscreant two such blows as sent him,
sorely wounded and howling with pain, flying from the scene of his
dastardly exploit. But the poor father thus goaded to madness and
blinded by fury, whose withered arm and wasted frame could not endure
any sustained exertion, was at once overpowered and disarmed before he
could strike another blow in defence of his outraged household. They
bound him most cruelly, they tied his ankles together and forced
the rough and prickly gemoetoe-cords between his toes, which at
the slightest movement, put the unfortunate man to excruciating
torture. Next they proceeded to handcuff him; but, as the manacles were
much too wide to confine his shrivelled wrists, they drove in between
the arm and the iron, rough pieces of firewood, and this caused such
intolerable pain that a lamentable howl came from Pak Ardjan's lips--a
howl most like that of some poor beast in its dying agony.
But now the opium? The opium? Hitherto none had been found.
Singomengolo stood scratching his ear. He was, indeed, in a most
awkward predicament.
"What a rage the Kandjeng toean Resident will be in," muttered he. But
he did not mind him much. He would bluster no doubt a good deal and
bark; but he would take good care not to bite.
But, what would Babah Lim Yang Bing think of it? might he not look
with suspicion upon all this fruitless zeal.
And then the newspapers! What if they began to talk--and talk those
confounded papers would there could be no doubt about it.
And the judges! What if they should take it up? They must take it up of
course. Pak Ardjan had violently, and with arms in his hand, resisted
the police--the opium police. And that was a crime which could not
be hushed up. That was one of the offences which the Dutchmen always
punished with the greatest severity. Yes, but then the fact would come
out that there had been a visitation, a pretty severe visitation,
and that nothing had been found. And then other matters might, and
would probably, leak out. Aye, they had handled the little girls a
little too brutally. And those judges were such an inquisitive lot,
they were sure to get to the bottom of it all. He was in an awkward
plight. Oh! had he but found the opium! Or better still, had he but
taken his usual precautions!
"And yet," muttered he, as his hawk-like eye darted round the little
hut, "I had such very precise instructions. I was to wait until Pak
Ardjan had returned from the ravine, then--But would it not have been
much wiser to surprise him in the ravine?--No, no--that would never
have done--he might have sworn that he had found the opium there by
chance, and those judges are so lenient, they will believe anything,
and they never convict if there is the possibility of a doubt. No, no,
the opium must--it shall--be found in Pak Ardjan's own possession,
that only will be conclusive evidence of guilt. But--I cannot find
it--Eh! eh!" he exclaimed, "what have we here?" With one bound
Singomengolo reached the corner where a slight bulge in the roof
seemed to look as if it had quite lately been disturbed. The edges
of the nipah-leaves did not look quite so dark in that spot as the
others which had been exposed to the smoke. The bandoelan thrust his
hand into the roof, he felt about for a few moments, and then, he drew
forth two small parcels. These he hastily unwrapped and uttered a cry
of triumph. It was the opium which Pak Ardjan had tried to hide just
before his house was searched. "You lie, you scoundrel!" roared he,
to the wretched Javanese, as he dealt him a blow in the face with
the back of his hand, which made the blood to spurt from his lips.
But the latter replied not a word.
When the captured opium had been duly examined by the witnesses,
the detected criminal was flung into a filthy sedan-chair carried by
some natives who had been pressed for that service. Thus under proper
escort and guard, Pak Ardjan was conveyed to Santjoemeh, and lodged
in the jail.
A few days later Resident van Gulpendam laid a formal charge
against Pak Ardjan before the court at Santjoemeh. He was accused of
opium-smuggling, and of having violently, and with arms in his hands,
resisted the police in the execution of their duty; one of the officers
having received serious wounds in the affray.
Mr. Zuidhoorn, the President, read over the charge, and as he read
he could not conceal a bitter smile. "It is disgusting," muttered he,
"disgusting!"