He got his refractory cow to the bottom by the time that the girls had reached the top. They stood there in a gaily colored row shouting down to him and laughing, but he could not catch the drift of their jokes. He looked after them till they vanished across the ricefields, and then went on, shaded by his large hat. The cool water refreshed his feet as he forded the river, and he was happy.
After ascending the other bank he soon reached his sawahs. They were deep in good muddy water, and although Pak had got up in a bad temper for work he now rejoiced in it. He got the plough in position, attached the cow to it and put his own weight, too, behind it. With bent knees he pressed heavily down to make the plough dig deeply into the soft, moist earth. The soil made a dull sucking noise as it rose and fell from the ploughshare. Pak loved this sound. He loved this earth. The mud splashed up and sprinkled him and the cow with cool drops which soon dried to a gray crust. White herons flew over and alighted to fish on stilt-like legs for the slender eels which throve in the sawahs. Dragonflies flickered past. The earth sucked and threw up noisy mud bubbles and was eased.…
So the hours passed. When the sun was at its highest and the first four of the eight hours of the day had gone by, Pak stopped ploughing. His thighs ached, so did his arms. Sweat ran into his mouth. He felt a great emptiness in his stomach. Yet it annoyed him to have to leave his work to go home to fill his empty stomach with food. He put a fresh sirih into his mouth to appease his pangs.
Then suddenly he saw a small figure coming across the rice-fields with a small basket on her head. He screwed up his eyes. The white herons rose at her approach. Pak began to laugh—it was Rantun, his daughter, bringing him his dinner, though really she was still too small to undertake the tasks of a grown girl. She came along looking very solemn, dressed in a little sarong which flapped about her feet. She had little earrings in her ears and a long lock of hair fell straight down her forehead. It had not been cut yet, for Pak had never yet had enough money by him for the festival that he had to give when the pedanda cut this lock for the first time and blessed the child. Why, he had not even had his own teeth filed, though he was a married man and a full member of the village council. These festivals were put off from year to year in Pak’s family. Perhaps in time he would be able to save enough money to get it all done at one go—the filing of his teeth, Lambon’s ripeness, the cutting of the lock and the first birthday of the newly born child. Pak had a little money buried under his house, fifty-two ringits in all; it had been fifty-five before the last cock-fight. Puglug had made sharp remarks about men who gambled away their money instead of seeing to the burning of their mothers, and Pak had listened with a stolid face, knowing in his heart that Puglug was right. His mother had died five years ago and it was high time her remains were burnt. Pak was often secretly afraid that the unreleased soul of his mother would make itself felt in ways disastrous for the family. He had searched everywhere to find where Puglug hid her own money, her market earnings; but he had never found any of it and Puglug maintained that she had to spend it all to feed him well, as it was the duty of a wife to do.
While Pak’s thoughts had been running on all the cares of which Rantun’s uncut hair reminded him, the child had come up. Now she knelt down at the edge of the sawah and opened her basket. Earnestly and a little timidly she handed him a pisang leaf of rice and another of roast beans. Pak rinsed his hands in the water which ran from the neighboring field down into the sawah and began to eat. The cow cheerlessly pulled the grass on the narrow balk. When he had eaten his fill he gave Rantun what was left and she modestly ate it up. Rantun was a quiet gentle child and Pak was very fond of her in spite of her not having turned out to be a son. He put his hand on her shoulder and they sat thus for a time, motionless, silent and perfectly happy.
When he was rested and had enjoyed long enough the comfort of a full belly, Pak got up. “You are a good little woman and one day I’ll give you a fine new sarong,” he said, putting his hands round her. Rantun snuggled tenderly against them. Pak was grateful to his little daughter, but he had a great longing for a son. He could squat for hours picturing to himself all that he would do if he had a son. Daughters belonged to their mothers and later to the man who carried them off. A father had to have a son for companionship and to give him descendants. With his hand still on Rantun’s tender little body he reflected that he needed a second wife to bear him sons, since Puglug bore only girls. At last he let go of the child and helped her to cut a long thin wand to catch dragonflies, which, roasted, are a great delicacy. Then with a sigh he turned again to the plough and the wet earth.
The sun was already declining when Pak heard a sound that made him stop and listen. The kulkul, first from Sanur, faint but insistent, and then from Taman Sari too, could be heard in deep rapid beats. Pak finished his furrow, but he paid little attention now to his ploughing. He was wholly absorbed in wondering why the kulkul was beating at that hour of the day. He could feel his liver swelling with curiosity. Hurry up all of you, come and help quickly, was the message beaten out by the village drums, as they reverberated over the sawahs. Work had ceased in every field. “What does that mean?” the men called to one another. “They’re calling us in,” others said. Pak was already unloosing the cow. “We have got to go,” Krkek shouted across to him. He was an elderly, intelligent man, much respected in the village, and the head of various committees to do with the supply of water to the fields and the harvesting of the rice-fields. Pak, like the rest, left his work and drove his cow as fast as he could along the dyke and across the river to the village. The ford was thronged with gray buffaloes, light-brown cows and mud-caked hurrying men, eager to know what was up. Half-way up the river bank they met another lot of men coming from the village. “Turn back,” they shouted. “We have to go to Sanur, we’re wanted, something has happened.” Most of them had brought the pointed bamboo poles, used as a rule for carrying loads, and some even had a kris in their girdles or a spear in their hands. “Is it a tiger?” Pak asked excitedly. Krkek laughed scornfully through his nose. “You can grow to be a very old man in the plains without ever seeing a tiger,” he said patronizingly. “There are still some in the hills. I helped to kill one up in Kintamani.” Pak made a sound of polite admiration with his lips. The cow pulled him back to the river; she wanted to be washed down after her labor as she always was. For a few minutes everything was turmoil, shouting and confusion. Then Krkek told some children to drive the cows and buffaloes to the pastures, and the men fell into single file and set off at a quick pace for Sanur.
There the roads were crowded with people, all making for the shore. At every yard gate stood old women carrying astride on their hips the infants entrusted to their charge. The younger women hurried along with the men, laughing and chattering, followed by their daughters. The boys of the village were a long way in front, kicking up a cloud of dust. Pak learnt from the clamor all round him that a boat had been wrecked on the coast. He laughed in amazement— this was just what his old father had said. He was as wise as the pedanda himself.
“The old man at home told me that already,” he shouted to the man nearest him. Another burst out laughing at some thought that suddenly crossed his mind and the laughter spread. They could not go on for laughing, they shut their eyes and slapped themselves on the knee. They had all been frightened and now it appeared that Baju, the god of the wind, had wanted to do them a favor and had cast up a ship on the coast for them. They all had visions of rich wreckage, cases of goods, rice and dried coconut. Pak, who was hurrying along faster and faster, secretly felt that he had a good deal to do with the wrecking of the ship. His father had foretold it and he himself had killed his finest white hen for the god. He saw cause and effect in close and most happy sequence and he bothered no more about his broken wall.
The crowd parted for a moment to make way for the head man of the coast villages, the punggawa, Ida Bagus Gdé He was a handsome man, rotund and stout, with round eyes and a moustache. A servant held a Chinese paper umbrella above his head, although the road was completely shadowed by palm trees.
Pak could hear the surf before he saw it. Big waves were crashing on the beach, for it was high tide. They ran the last part of the way and then they all abruptly stood still and gazed at the sight that met their eyes.
The sea was breaking over a large ship, which appeared to be helpless. It had once had three masts, but two had gone overboard. The sails hung down in shreds. A few men could be seen on