frightened at his voice, when he sang monotonously: “I do not know where I shall die,” and some inhabitants of Badoer put money together, to bring a sacrifice to the bojajas[1] of the Tji-Udjung for the cure of Saidjah, whom they thought insane. But he was not insane.
For upon a certain night when the moon was very clear, he rose from the baleh-baleh,[2] softly left the house, and sought the place where Adinda had lived. This was not easy, because so many houses had fallen down; but he seemed to recognise the place by the width of the angle which some rays of light formed through the trees, at their meeting in his eye, as the sailor measures by lighthouses and the tops of mountains.
Yes, there it ought to be:—there Adinda had lived!
Stumbling over half-rotten bamboo and pieces of the fallen roof, he made his way to the sanctuary which he sought. And, indeed, he found something of the still standing pagger,[3] near to which the baleh-baleh of Adinda had stood, and even the pin of bamboo was still with its point in that pagger, the pin on which she hung her dress when she went fo bed. . . . .
But the baleh-baleh had fallen down like the house, and
- ↑ Bojajas = crocodiles. “To bring a sacrifice to the crocodiles.” Such sacrifices are much in vogue. Some fruits and some pastry, or a few hen’s eggs, are placed on a saucer of bamboo, one or more burning wax-lighta are added, all this is placed on the river, and the floating down of many such sacrifices is a beautiful sight.
- ↑ Baleh-baleh = couch.
- ↑ Enclosure.
