day, the longer he thought the period of the thirty-six moons before him. There was something in his soul which made him walk less quickly—he felt affliction in his knees, and though it was not dejection that overcame him, yet it was mournfulness, which is not far from it. He thought of returning;—but what would Adinda think of so little heart?
Therefore he walked on, though less rapidly than the first day. He had the ‘melatti’ in his hand, and often pressed it to his breast. He had become much older during the last three days, and he no longer understood how he had lived so calmly before, when Adinda was so near him, and he could see her as often as he liked. But now he could not be calm, when he expected that he should see her again by and by. Nor did he understand why he after having taken leave had not returned once more to look at her again. And he even remembered how a short time ago he had quarrelled with her about the cord which she had made for the lalayang[1] of her brother, and which had broken because there was a defect in her work by which a wager had been lost against the children of Tjipoeroet. “How was it possible,” he thought, “to have been angry about that with Adinda? For if there was a defect in the cord, and if the wager of Badoer against
- ↑ Lalagang = kite,—a game wherein they try to cut each other’s cord. Often matches take place between different villages. This is a national game in Java, like cricket in England.
