And now the Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, pushed his way through the crowd. He had a house in Sanur and traded with the boats that put in there. People laughed as they made way for him. He wore a sarong, as they did in Bali, but also a jacket and cap, like a real Chinaman. His cap was crooked and showed his shaven head. The crowd shouted with laughter. They had heard that Njo Tok Suey had a head as smooth as an egg, but they had never seen anything like it before. The Chinaman paid no attention to their merriment but pushed his way, puffing and blowing, to the punggawa. The two men were at once surrounded, for of course everybody wanted to hear what they said. Pak was disappointed at not being able to understand. “What are they talking?” he asked the knowing Krkek. “Malay,” the other replied with the air of knowing every language in the world.
After speaking for a short while with the punggawa, the Chinaman stepped back and made a low bow. The punggawa, addressing the crowd, called out in a loud voice, “Bring everything you find and lay it down before me here. It belongs to the men on the ship and nothing of it must be taken.”
There was a low murmur from the crowd. If the gods of the wind and sea cast up wet buffalo hides on the shore it was clear they meant them as a present to the people of the coast. Pak surrendered his fish rather unwillingly. He laid it reluctantly down on the heap of dripping objects which rose at the punggawa’s feet. “It is only a heap of stink,” cried out Pak’s friend, Rib, who was a wag, and the murmurs of the crowd turned to laughter.
But the laughter died away when the punggawa ordered them to rescue the men from the ship. The punggawa had great power over the people of Taman Sari and Sanur and it was not an easy matter to defy him. His eyes were fiery and he had a loud voice that no one could disregard. The front ranks of the circle surrounding him unobtrusively melted away, and a few of the older men muttered that they had no courage. It was not for poor sudras and rice cultivators to have courage; courage was the business of warriors and rajas of the Ksatria caste and self-sacrifice might be the duty of a Brahman, as Ida Bagus Gdé was. This at least was what Pak thought and the majority was of his way of thinking. Meanwhile the ship’s timbers could be heard groaning and rending every time it was thrown on the rocks. The crew had stopped crying out and their silence showed the danger they were in. The Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, stood beside the punggawa, not behind him as good manners enjoined, waiting patiently with his hands buried in his wide sleeves.
A small knot of men who had been standing together higher up the beach now came running up. They were the unmarried and younger men of the two villages and Pak saw his brother, Meru, among them. His youngest brother, Lantjar, was there too; he had got hold of a spear from somewhere and was waving his lanky arms. Suddenly all the men turned their heads, and a cry, started by the women, spread from mouth to mouth. “Raka,” they shouted, “here’s Rakal Raka, what are you going to do?”
Pak elbowed aside the man next him and then saw with a momentary shock that it was the wealthy Wajan whose ribs he had dug with his elbows in order to make his way to the front.
Raka had put himself at the head of the young men and was now knotting his kain into a loin-cloth. Raka was the handsomest man in all the five villages round and the best dancer in the whole lordship of Badung. He was the eldest son of the revered pedanda, Ida Bagus Rai, and all this combined to make him the hero of the villages. The girls’ eyes darkened when he passed and the men could not help smiling and wishing him well whenever they saw him. When he danced he looked like the young god Arjuna himself, splendidly dressed, proud and beautiful.
At this moment indeed there was nothing of the glamour about him, except for the fine build and beauty of his body. He looked like any peasant with his kain knotted between his thighs as he darted into the sea behind a retreating wave which left only its froth on the sand. “Who will come bathing with me?” he called out laughing, and some did actually follow him up to the edge of the foaming breakers. Meru was one of them, Pak saw, and he had only just time to seize Lantjar and drag him back as the next wave was breaking on the beach.
A universal shout went up when the young men vanished in the water, for the people of Sanur were afraid of the sea where there were sharks and sword-fish. Only a few fishermen were on intimate terms with it and its unreliable god Baruna too, who exacted many offerings from them. Pak stood perfectly motionless, his arm about Lantjar’s slender shoulders, which were quivering with excitement. Everyone was motionless as they gazed dumbly at the water. When the wave had spent itself they saw Raka and his companions already some way out wading towards the wreck. The ship’s sides were stove in by the next sea that struck it and a man climbed to the highest part of the ship that was still above water and waved what looked like an old faded flag.
“What is that he’s waving?” Pak asked the omniscient Krkek, for it might well be a cloth endowed with magic powers.
Krkek screwed up his eyes and considered the matter. “It is the sign the Dutch carry in front of them when they fight,” he said at last.
“Mbe!” said Pak, impressed by the extent of his knowledge. Even he had heard of the white men who ruled the north of the island and even on the south of it had overthrown the lords of Karang Asem and Gianjar. Far-travelled men who passed through Taman Sari had surprising things to tell of these Dutchmen. Pak had never yet seen one and he knew that the sight of them would terrify him. It was said that the white men were as tall as giants and tremendously stout and strong. Their eyes were without color, but they could see quite well, although they moved about like blind men, as stiffly and clumsily as figures of stone. It was uncertain, too, whether they had souls and whether any part of the divine nature dwelt in them as it did in every living creature in Bali. They had come years ago from Java, the only foreign land Pak had ever heard of. They were clever and powerful beyond measure, probably because they had fair skins like many of the gods. Although this was all in the highest degree strange and alarming, it appeared that the Dutch did not do any harm. They respected the gods of the island and the ancient laws. They could cure sickness and were unwilling to have people killed. It was even said that they would not allow the rajas on the conquered territories to carry out death sentences. They were immeasurably rich and occasionally one of their ringits got as far as Taman Sari. On it was stamped the picture of a long-nosed, full-breasted but not unpleasant-looking goddess.
Pak ran over in his mind all he knew about the white men, while Lantjar’s trembling body leant against him. He plucked up his courage, for it was possible that some of them might come to land from the wrecked ship and that he would before long have to face the sight of them. In a few minutes he even forgot his anxiety for his brother Meru, who was struggling on through the water, although he had nothing to gain there.
A great cry rose from the crowd when Raka and the handful of men with him reached the ship. The force of the waves had decreased, for the tide seemed to have passed its height. The sea had fallen already and revealed the vessel’s battered hull. Two jukungs put out; one was Sarda’s and the other belonged to another fisherman, Bengek, who owned the neglected sawah next to Pak’s.
The people laughed when they saw what Raka was about now he had reached the ship. He and some of his companions each took one of the shipwrecked men on their backs and then waded through the surf and foam of the ebbing water to the shore. The laughter grew louder and louder as they came nearer and ended in general uproar and stampeding when they reached the shore. Pak’s extreme apprehension was relieved when