Already a few armed men came charging into the hut with their lance-points levelled at his breast.
"Stand back!" shouted Setrosmito whose rage had not yet had time to cool down. "Stand back! whoever comes nearer I will serve as I have served that wretch!"
The man was evidently in deadly earnest and the kris was waved in so threatening a manner at the words that his assailants turned and fled in alarm and formed up in a close ring around the hut. In that circle there was a great deal of talking, of consulting, of screaming and gesticulating; but there seemed not to be a single man who felt the smallest desire of again crossing the threshold.
It was at this juncture that Controller Verstork came galloping up with the gentlemen who accompanied him and, as we have heard, put an end to the murderous scene by taking the ill-fated man prisoner.
In the course of the inquiry which followed Singomengolo produced the opium which he declared he had found in Setrosmito's house and which, in the interest of the opium-farmer, he had confiscated.
In the small copper-box there was but a very small quantity of the poppy-juice which, when weighed at the opium store, was found to be but fifty matas, that is about eighteen milligrams. It was a brownish sticky mass enclosed in a tiny box which could be easily concealed in the closed palm of a man's hand. The Controller took possession of the box and in the presence of the opium-hunter he sealed it up according to the law.
"Did anyone witness the finding of this box under the mat on the baleh-baleh?" asked Verstork.
"Oh yes, certainly," was the reply, "the Chinese bandoelan saw me find it."
"The man who is dead? Anyone else?" continued the Controller.
"Indeed!" remarked Verstork. "These were the men, I think, who, a few moments before could discover nothing?"
"No matter," said the opium spy with great effrontery. "I, kandjeng toean," he continued, "am a sworn bandoelan--I found it there and my word suffices. The testimony of the policemen is altogether superfluous."
The look of utter contempt and loathing which Verstork cast upon him as he spoke seemed to have but little effect upon the shameless spy; for he merely made the usual obsequious salute and as he turned to go, he muttered: