You may guess the rest, if you know your history of Java. I didn't then, and didn't even know Batavia,--had been ashore often, but only for a _toelatingskaart_ and some good Dutch chow. Well, one afternoon, I was loafing down a street, and suddenly noticed that the sign-board said, "Jacatra-weg." The word made me jump, and brought the whole affair on Celebes back like a shot,--and not as a dream. It became a live question; I determined to treat it as one, and settle it. I stopped a fat Dutchman who was paddling down the middle of the street in his pyjamas, smoking a cigar. "Pardon, Mynheer," I said. "Does a man live here in Jacatra-weg named Erberveld?" "_Nej_," he shook his big shaved head. "_Nej_, Mynheer, I do not know." "Pieter Erberveld," I suggested. The man broke into a horse-laugh. "_Ja, ja_," he said, and laughed still. "I did not think of him. _Ja_, on this way, opposite the timber yard, you will find his house." And he went off, bowing and grinning hugely. The nature of the joke appeared later, but I wasn't inclined to laugh. You've seen the place. No? Right opposite a timber yard in a cocoanut grove: it was a heavy, whitewashed wall, as high as a man, and perhaps two perches long. Where the gate should have been, a big tablet was set in, and over that, on a spike, a skull, grinning through a coat of cement. The tablet ran in eighteenth-century Dutch, about like this:-- BY REASON OF THE DETESTABLE MEMORY OF THE CONVICTED TRAITOR, PIETER ERBERVELD, NO ONE SHALL BE PERMITTED TO BUILD IN WOOD OR STONE OR TO PLANT ANYTHING UPON THIS GROUND, FROM NOW TILL JUDGMENT DAY. BATAVIA, APRIL 14, ANNO 1772. You'll find the story in any book: the chap was a half-caste Guy Fawkes who conspired to deliver Batavia to the King of Bantam, was caught, tried, and torn asunder by horses. I nosed about and went through a hole in a side wall: nothing in the compound but green mould, dried stalks, dead leaves, and blighted banana trees. The inside of the gate was blocked with five to eight feet of cement. The Dutch hate solidly. But Hendrik van der Have? No, I never found the name in any of the books. So there you are. Well? Can a man dream of a thing before he knows that thing, or---- * * * * * The captain's voice, which had flowed on in slow and dispassionate soliloquy, became half audible, and ceased. As we gave ear to the silence, we became aware that a cool stir in the darkness was growing into a breeze. After a time, the thin crowing of game-cocks in distant villages, the first twitter of birds among the highest branches, told us that night had turned to morning. A soft patter of bare feet came along the deck, a shadow stood above us, and the low voice of the mate said: "_Ada kapal api disitu, Tuan_--_saiah kirah_--_ada kapal prrang_." "Gunboat, eh?" Captain Forsythe was on his feet, and speaking briskly. "_Bai, tarek jangcar_. Breeze comes just in time."