it. But again he was at the entrance to the village, and ... O God, was
it a dream?...

Again he had not found the house of Adinda. Again he flew back and
suddenly stood still.... And the women of Badoer came out of their
houses, and saw with sorrow poor Saidjah standing there, for they knew
him and understood that he was looking for the house of Adinda, and they
knew that there was no house of Adinda in the village of Badoer.

For when the district chief of Parang-Koodjang had taken away Adinda's
father's buffaloes....

(I told you, reader! that my narrative was monotonous.)

... Adinda's mother died of grief, and her baby sister died because she
had no mother, and had no one to suckle her. And Adinda's father, who
feared to be punished for not paying his land taxes....

(I know, I know that my tale is monotonous.)

... had fled out of the country; he had taken Adinda and her brother
with him. He had gone to Tjilang-Rahan, bordering on the sea. There he
had concealed himself in the woods and waited for some others that had
been robbed of their buffaloes by the district chief of Parang-Koodjang,
and all of whom feared punishment for not paying their land taxes. Then
they had at night taken possession of a fishing boat, and steered
northward to the Lampoons.

[Saidjah, following their route] arrived in the Lampoons, where the
inhabitants were in insurrection against the Dutch rule. He joined a
troop of Badoer men, not so much to fight as to seek Adinda; for he had
a tender heart, and was more disposed to sorrow than to bitterness.

One day that the insurgents had been beaten, he wandered through a
village that had just been taken by the Dutch, and was therefore in
flames. Saidjah knew that the troop that had been destroyed there
consisted for the most part of Badoer men. He wandered like a ghost
among the houses which were not yet burned down, and found the corpse of
Adinda's father with a bayonet wound in the breast. Near him Saidjah saw
the three murdered brothers of Adinda, still only children, and a little
further lay the corpse of Adinda, naked and horribly mutilated.

* * * * *

Then Saidjah went to meet some soldiers who were driving, at the point
of the bayonet, the surviving insurgents into the fire of the burning
houses; he embraced the broad bayonets, pressed forward with all his
might, and still repulsed the soldiers with a last exertion, until their
weapons were buri