.
"Very true!" exclaimed Sahamin and Bahassoen together.
Babalatchi glanced at them approvingly and turned to Abdulla.
"Listen to those men, O Protector of the oppressed!" he exclaimed.

"What could we do?
A man must trade.

There was nobody else." Sahamin got up, staff in hand, and spoke to Abdulla with ponderous courtesy, emphasizing his words by the solemn flourishes of his right arm.
"It is so.

We are weary of paying our debts to that white man here, who is the son of the Rajah Laut.

That white man--may the grave of his mother be defiled!--is not content to hold us all in his hand with a cruel grasp.