“I have been told that before, I know, but is that what you are laughing at?” “Oh, you stupid! Did you not hear the shrieks uttered by number three of the accused?” “Yes, I did.” “Well, he alone burnt his finger and nobody else. But I had better explain it to you. The first two are well-to-do young men who only had to interchange a look with the judges in order to be taken for innocence personified. Possibly the judges had received their fee beforehand; if not they are quite certain to get it. The third was a poor lad from whom nothing was to be expected. He had no significant looks to interchange.” “I would understand all this were it not that with my own eyes I saw their three fingers move up and down in the molten rosin; I looked most attentively.” “Did you now; and what else did you see?” “What more could I see?” “That is what you call looking attentively?” Johannes said mockingly. “And did you not see that the color of the rosin was not the same in each basin?” “And suppose it was not? Rosin is rosin.” “No, stupid! Rosin is not rosin, or rather one is and the other is not. I see I must explain this also. The finest sorts of rosin, being pure, melt at a very low temperature, while the less fine, being porous and sandy, require a much greater heat to melt them.” “Aha!” “Do you see it now? When therefore the judges order you to dip your finger in a basin of the best rosin, which only requires very little heat to liquefy, you can keep it in there as long as you choose without more pain than that of a slight scald. But let them put your finger in the poorer kind and you would bellow as the hireling, and to-morrow morning you would have that finger beautifully flayed. Now, good-night.” Johannes was quite correct in his prediction. On the following morning when the wounded fingers were unbound for official inspection two appeared wholly unhurt. The finger of the hireling was, however, frightfully burned, the skin coming off with the bandage. The accused was duly condemned. In the meantime preparation for the impending departure to soengei Miri had not been neglected. Provisions and ammunition were all packed, guns and rifles were ready for shipment, and as nothing remained to be done except the confection of some trifling domestic preparations, the Europeans had a few days to spend as they chose.