Page:Life in Java Volume 2.djvu/83

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FATAL INCIDENT.
67

Another but more fatal incident was related to me at the same time. A keeper, whilst engaged in throwing down the carcases of dogs, &c., to the wild beasts, slipped his foot, and falling into the den, lay flat on the ground, where he continued for some hours, until his wife, missing him at their meal-time, came to the cage in the hope of finding him. "Ahmet, Ahmet, are you up there?" she cried as she reached the foot of the ladder. Who can describe her horror when the expected answer came not from above, but from within the den. Her cries for help soon brought numbers to the spot, and poor Ahmet was, at last, with some difficulty, hoisted up by the aid of ropes. He seemed almost paralyzed with fear, and on being carried home, was put to bed, where he was seized with dammum saju, or ague, and died next day.

On the opposite side of the green stands the Musgit, or Mosque. The entrance of Europeans into their "sacred edifice" is not prohibited, as it