SUMMUM JUS SUMMA INJURIA. FATHER AND SON CONDEMNED. MURDER OF SINGOMENGOLO.  
A couple of days later, Mr. Zuidhoorn left Santjoemeh. He started for Batavia in one of the Dutch Indian Navigation Company’s ships, intending to take a passage to Singapore in the Emirne. From Singapore he was to go to Marseilles in the Irrawady of the Messageries Maritimes. He was, as we have seen, a thoroughly honest man; and he had fully made up his mind to let the authorities at Batavia know all that had occurred at the last session in Santjoemeh. He intended to act in this matter as prudently as possible; but yet was resolved that the officials at the head-quarters should be fully informed of the shameful intrigues that were carried on in the interior. But—between the forming of a good resolution and the carrying out of it, there is a vast difference, as Mr. Zuidhoorn was soon to discover.
 
He had but three days to stay in Batavia, and he found that he could not, in these three days, obtain an interview with the Governor General. Mr. Zuidhoorn had taken the trouble to go all the way to Buitenzorg; but it was only to find that, on the very day of his arrival, his Excellency had, in the early morning, started for Tjipannas. The only thing, therefore, that he could do was to wait till the morrow, and then take a carriage and drive to that place. Mr. Zuidhoorn took the precaution of telegraphing to the adjutant on duty, and as he received no answer to his telegram, he started the next morning for Tjipannas. He was doomed to be once again disappointed; for when he arrived, he was told that, unfortunately, His Excellency the Governor was confined to his room by a severe attack of fever, and that no one could be admitted to [335]his presence. The aide-de-camp made this announcement with a profusion of excuses, and tried to explain that he had not been able to send a reply to the telegram because His Excellency had not been taken ill until late in the night.
 
There was no help for it, and Mr. Zuidhoorn had to hurry back, as best he could, to Batavia; cursing his unlucky star. But in these fruitless efforts to gain the Governor’s ears, two precious days had been wasted, and he had but one left.
 
On the following morning Mr. Zuidhoorn called upon the Chief Justice. This gentleman received him with a cordiality which was somewhat too boisterous to be real.
 
“Here you are at length, my dear Zuidhoorn!” cried he, as, with much outward show of friendship, he grasped his hand. “Indeed, I am delighted to see you! I have been alarming myself so dreadfully about the state of your health, that it is a positive relief to see you as well as you are. I thought your indisposition was much more serious. I am glad to find you are not so very bad after all; but it is getting high time for you to go away for a bit and get a little rest.”
 
Mr. Zuidhoorn did not know what to make of all this. “You thought me very ill?” he asked in surprise. “What do you mean? I don’t remember, in any of my letters, that I represented my state of health as worse than it really is. And then ‘high time to get away?’ I assure you I do not understand what you mean. I was not at all anxious to leave.”
 
“I suppose not,” rejoined the Chief Justice, “I suppose not; but I know you are beginning to feel the effect of the climate.”
 
“Of the climate?” repeated Zuidhoorn still more puzzled.
 
“Yes! yes! you see, when we Europeans are forced to live in the tropics for any considerable time, then, in some cases, nervous debility begins to set in, frequently accompanied by weakening or softening of the brain—”
 
“My dear sir,” cried Zuidhoorn, “your hints—”
 
“Are not in the least applicable to you! My dear Zuidhoorn, I know that as well as you do; but pray let me finish what I was going to say. Some men, I observed, begin to suffer from debility and impaired brain-power—others grow nervous, excitable, irritable—”
 
“Chief Justice!” cried Zuidhoorn, “is that the case with me?”
 
“As a rule,” continued the other without noticing the interruption, “as a rule the patient is, in such cases, wholly unconscious [336]of his condition; and is under the impression that he continues to speak and act precisely as he was always wont to do.”
 
“Is such the case with me?” again asked Zuidhoorn, repeating his question.
 
“Well, yes, my dear colleague, I am sorry to say that, to a certain extent, it is. You yourself are not aware of it, of course: but yet to your friends the style in which you write has, of late, betrayed a degree of irritability which you, as an excellent juris peritus, know is scarcely desirable in a high legal functionary.”
 
“But my dear sir!” exclaimed Zuidhoorn, “I am not at all aware—”
 
“Quantum est quod nescimus!” interrupted the other.
 
“Well,” continued Zuidhoorn, “it is a very curious thing that no one has ever dropped the slightest hint to me of any such infirmity.”
 
“True enough, my dear colleague; but nevertheless it has been noticed for some little time. At first I looked upon it merely as a result of the extreme interest which we know you take in the discharge of your duties. But it soon became evident to your friends that it was a symptom of failing health: and, as you know perfectly well, in our profession especially, it is of the utmost importance that there should be meus sana in corpore sano.”
 
Mr. Zuidhoorn was utterly amazed, as well as fairly disgusted. Was that then the impression which his long and conscientious services had made upon his superiors at head-quarters? Was that the reward for the many years of anxious work which he had bestowed upon his office?
 
“But, my dear sir,” said he, “you will, I suppose, not object to give me a single instance in which that supposed infirmity of mine has manifested itself to you?”
 
“A single instance! my worthy friend, why! I will give you ten, twenty if you like!”
 
“I ask you but for one,” was Zuidhoorn’s reply.
 
“Very well then,” said the Chief Justice, “look at that recent business of the Santjoemeh sessions.”
 
“Which sessions?” asked Zuidhoorn.
 
“Ah, you see! you have a kind of inner consciousness that there are several occasions on which—”
 
“That is the merest quibble!” cried Zuidhoorn, somewhat testily, “the merest quibble! I have attended at, and presided [337]over, so many sessions, that my question is, surely, a very natural one.”
 
“Well, I will tell you,” replied the other, “I am alluding to the affair with Resident van Gulpendam.”
 
“Who would persist in presiding over the trials, which he had no right whatever to do.”
 
“Come, come, my dear friend,” said the Chief Justice, “you must be losing sight of clause 92 of our Judicial regulations. But, I ascribe that want of memory to your mental condition.”
 
“Pardon me,” interrupted Mr. Zuidhoorn warmly, “the condition of my mind has nothing whatever to do with it. You said clause 92?”
 
“Precisely so,” replied the Chief Justice, “that clause confers upon the Resident the power of presiding at any session which may be held within his district, should he think it right and proper so to do.”
 
“I know that,” answered Zuidhoorn, “but pray remember, that when that 92nd clause was in force, there was as yet no thought of appointing specially qualified lawyers to the presidential office. At that time such a regulation may have been useful and even necessary; but, as matters stand now, it would be an utter absurdity for any Resident who is a layman, to put aside the specially appointed president in order to thrust himself upon a court of justice in the capacity of chairman. Methinks that—”
 
“Mr. Zuidhoorn, allow me to say, that we judges ought to be the very first to show strict respect to the written law. Certain rules and regulations may appear useless or even mischievous; but so long as they remain in force, we are bound to abide by them. And—pardon me the question—have you in this particular case acted up to that principle?”
 
“It seems to me then,” said Zuidhoorn, “that you do not approve of my line of conduct?”
 
“Not only do I disapprove of it,” replied the Chief Justice, “but the Governor General also is extremely annoyed at the attitude you have chosen to assume in this case. In his opinion the line of conduct you have thought it right to adopt has seriously impaired the prestige which ought to belong to your position.”
 
“Oh, indeed! is that his Excellency’s opinion?” asked Mr. Zuidhoorn musingly. “Now I begin to see why I have not been admitted to an audience.”
 
“Have you tried to obtain one?” [338]
 
“Yes, I have,” was the reply. “The day before yesterday I went to Buitenzorg—yesterday I went on to Tjipannas—”
 
“And—?”
 
“I was told by the aide-de-camp on duty that his Excellency was ill in bed and could see no one.”
 
“You see!” exclaimed the Chief Justice. “What did I tell you?”
 
“But, my dear sir,” interposed Zuidhoorn, “the most scandalous proceedings are going on. For the sake of shielding a wealthy opium farmer, a poor devil of a Javanese—!”
 
“Has been falsely accused—and will in all probability, be found guilty in spite of his innocence,” remarked the Chief Justice with a cynical smile. “Oh, yes, we know all about it, you have put the whole question most clearly and most circumstantially before us. But what are we to do? We are powerless, and must bend our heads to the storm. You know summum jus, summa injuria.”
 
Mr. Zuidhoorn was leaning his head on his hand as his colleague spoke thus; and was vacantly, almost hopelessly, staring before him.
 
“Let me give you a friendly piece of advice, my dear colleague,” resumed the Chief Justice kindly; “the fact is you are not at all well—you are more seriously indisposed than you yourself are aware of. To-morrow you mean to sail in the Emirne, eh? Very well, my advice to you is to leave all these worries and bothers behind you in Batavia; fling off all these anxieties, and go to Europe to recruit your failing strength. In a couple of years’ time you will return with fresh vigour—a new man, in fact, in mind and body—and then you will for many years to come continue to be an ornament to a profession in which, allow me to tell you, very few can compete with you. And now you must excuse me. My time is very precious and— Oh, yes, one other recommendation let me give you before taking leave. For the future, pray take the greatest care never to meddle in any way, if you can possibly help it, with any of the complications and intrigues of the opium trade. I need hardly tell you that it is an imperium in imperio and, to this I may add, malum malo proximum; in all such matters, he who touches pitch must be defiled. And now—I can only wish you a quick and pleasant voyage and a happy time in the old country. Good-bye, my dear Zuidhoorn, good-bye. A pleasant journey to you!” [339]
 
The two cases of opium smuggling, the one at the Moeara Tjatjing and the other arising out of the discovery in the hut of Pak Ardjan at Kaligaweh, did not come on at once before the court at Santjoemeh. Resident van Gulpendam was delighted when he heard from the Chief Justice at Batavia, that, owing to the scarcity of legal men at head quarters, there was no chance whatever of filling up, for some time to come, the vacancy caused by Mr. Zuidhoorn’s departure.
 
The sittings of the court at which the Resident now had to preside, were held, as usual, regularly once a week; but Mr. van Gulpendam found no difficulty, on one pretext or another, in putting off the hearing of the opium cases from week to week.
 
At length, however, the chief djaksa had informed him that the two Chinamen, Than Khan and Liem King, who had been on watch in the djaga monjet, could nowhere be found. Presently it was found that Awal Boep Said, the captain of the schooner brig, Kiem Ping Hin, on whose testimony Ardjan chiefly relied, had also disappeared without leaving a trace behind him. Then van Gulpendam thought that the proper time had come to bring up the prisoners for trial.
 
Ardjan had to confess that on the February night in question, he had come ashore in very stormy weather; that the boat of the Matamata had chased him and had fired upon him; but he was quite unable to prove that the opium discovered, not far from the spot where his surf-boat was driven ashore, had not been landed by him. Thus all the evidence was against him. Then he called upon Dalima to prove that she was seated with him in the boat. The president, however, assured the court that the girl had not, on that night, left the grounds of the Residence, and that her testimony, therefore, must be a mere tissue of falsehood and of no value whatever—that it could not in any case invalidate the evidence already produced. The Resident further drew the court’s attention to the fact that Dalima herself was about to be put on trial for a precisely similar offence—a fact which could not but affect the weight of her testimony. The court thus came to the conclusion that it was perfectly useless to call so............