“I am convinced that he . . . would have been poisoned if he had been here longer.”
“Write that down!”
Verbrugge wrote those words down. His declaration lies before me!
“Another thing. Is it true or not true that extortion is practised in Lebak?”
Verbrugge did not answer.
“Answer. Verbrugge!”
“I dare not.”
“Write it down, that you dare not!”
Verbrugge wrote it down: it lies before me.
“Now, yet another thing: you dare not answer the last question, but you said to me recently, when there was a question of poisoning, that you were the only support of your sister at Batavia, isn’t that so? Is that perhaps the cause of your fear, the root of what I always called halfness?”
“Yes!”
“Write that down.”
Verbrugge wrote it down: his declaration lies before me.
“All right,” said Havelaar, “now I know enough.” And Verbrugge was allowed to go.
Havelaar went outside and played with little Max, whom he kissed with more tenderness even than usual. When Mrs. Slotering had gone, he sent the child away, and called Tine into his room.
“Dear Tine, I have to ask you a favour. I wish you to go to Batavia with Max: to-day I shall inform against the Regent.”
She put her arms around his neck, and for the first time refused to obey his wish; she cried sobbing:
“No, Max, no, Max, I won’t . . . I won’t! We shall eat and drink together!”
Had Havelaar been wrong, when he maintained that she was no more justified in blowing her nose than the women of Arles?
He wrote and sent off the letter of which I here give a copy.
