She clutched her maid: "They've spat at me ... with betel-juice!... They've spat ... at me ... with betel-juice!... They've spat ... at me ... with betel-juice!" "Hush, mem-sahib!... Come along ... to the swimming-bath!" "Wash me, Oorip!... Oorip, my hair, my eyes!... O God, I can taste it in my mouth!..." She sobbed despairingly; the maid dragged her along. "Oorip! First look ... look and see ... if they're spitting ... in the swimming-bath too!" The maid went in, shivering: "There's nothing there, mem-sahib." "Quick then, Oorip, bathe me, wash me." She flung off the kimono; her beautiful body became visible in the light of the lamp, as though soiled with dirty blood. "Oorip, wash me.... No, don't go for soap: water will do!... Don't leave me alone! Oorip, wash me here, can't you?... Burn the kimono! Oorip!" She ducked in the swimming-bath and swam round desperately; the maid, half-undressed, went in after her and washed her. "Quick, Oorip! Quick: only the worst places!... I'm frightened! Presently ... presently they'll be spitting here!... In the bedroom next, Oorip!... Call out that there's to be no one in the garden! I won't put the kimono on again! Quickly, Oorip, call out! I want to get away!" The maid called across the garden, in Javanese. Léonie, all dripping, stepped out of the water and, naked and wet, flew past the servants' rooms, with the maid behind her. Inside the house, Van Oudijck, frantic with anxiety, came running towards her. "Go away, Otto! Leave me alone! I've ... I've got nothing on!" she screamed. And she rushed into her room and, when Oorip had followed her, locked all the doors. In the garden, the servants crept together, under the sloping roof of the verandah, close to the house. The thunder was muttering softly and a silent rain was beginning to fall.... CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Léonie kept her bed for a couple of days with nervous fever. People at Labuwangi said that the residency was haunted. At the weekly assemblies in the Municipal Garden, when the band played and the children and the young people danced on the open-air stone floor, there were whispered conversations around the refreshment-tables touching the strange happenings in the residency. Dr. Rantzow was asked many questions, but could only tell what the resident had told him, what Mrs. van Oudijck herself had told him, of her being frightened in the bathroom by an enormous toad, on which she had trodden and stumbled. There was more known through the servants, however; though, when one spoke of the throwing of stones and the spitting of betel-juice, another laughed and called it all babu-talk. And so uncertainty prevailed. Nevertheless, the papers throughout the country, from Surabaya to Batavia, contained curious, hinting paragraphs, which were not very lucid but which suggested a good deal.