"Oh, yes," said she, "it is--this is quite a new drug. It must work, M`Bok Kârijâh brought it to me only this morning."
"Do you intend me to swallow that horrid stuff?"
"Come, Gulpie," said his wife, as she still held the spoon to his mouth. "Now, don't be childish, swallow it at once. You will see how it will work," continued she, as she patted his back with her hand. "Now, there's a dear, swallow it down, and then I will tell you how I have had as good a Hari ontong as you."
Whether his wife's coaxing words and ardent looks, or his intense curiosity to know what she had to tell him, overcame his repugnance matters but little. Suffice it to say, that the poor wretch shut his eyes, and opened his mouth, while his wife, with the spoon, put the pale-greenish mess upon his tongue. As he tasted it he heaved so violently with intense disgust, that an explosion seemed imminent.
"Come, swallow, swallow!" cried Laurentia, again patting his back with her soft hand. "So, so, that's right; and now clean the spoon, the stuff is much too precious to waste."
So the unhappy man was compelled to lick up and swallow the last vestige of the nauseous compound which clung to the spoon.
"And now," said he, "now for your story."
"Come here, Gulpie," said his wife, in her most coaxing manner. "Come here and sit down by me on the divan, and I will tell you all about it." She took up the box from the table, and seating herself cross-legged on the divan after the fashion of the natives, she drew her husband close to her side.
And now she proceeded to relate to him how M`Bok Kârijâh had, in the strictest confidence, told her how madly Lim Ho was in love with the baboe Dalima, and, as if they both did not know that well enough already, she added, with a strange smile, that he would do anything in the world to gain possession of the maiden. The forcible abduction from under the very eyes of her mistress was indeed proof sufficient of the ardour of his passion, and the poor fellow had been most grievously disappointed that he had been unable to attain his object.
Fair Laurentia did not tell her husband all this simply, and as a matter of fact story. No, no, she was an artiste in the arts of wheedling and seduction. She took her time and knew how to impart to her tale the necessary shades and tints--here and there seeming to hesitate as if modestly disinclined to enter into somewhat questionable details; and then again at the right moment launching out into a freedom of speech which threatened to become impassioned if it did not indeed actually border upon the indecent. And so she managed to finish her story by a glowing description of the ardent Chinaman and the personal charms of lovely Dalima.