Het vervloekte geld

Summary

Snuders, an avaricious boat-owner, insures his boat The Joanna against accident very much above its value, and then conspires with Verhoff, a notorious drunkard and unprincipled scoundrel, to lose it at sea.

The latter agrees to carry out the plan for a consideration of 300 florins, and the bargain is concluded. To lend colour to the affair, Snuders also engages young Tijen as crew, and, despite the entreaties of his sweetheart, Trunski, the latter signs on. Out at sea Tijen discovers a paper which warns him of the villainy which is on foot. But Verhoff acts quickly, and, whilst the young sailor is sleeping in the cabin, the drunkard locks him in, fires the boat, and himself makes good his escape.

Tijen awakes to find the cabin full of thick smoke, which sears his eyes and chokes his breathing. Half unconscious, but in agony, he gropes his way to the door, and at last succeeds in bursting it open, only to be met with a scorching rush of fire, which leaps in upon him. His clothes rapidly ignite, and with screams of agony the wretched boy rushes across the blistering deck to fling himself into the water, where, already half dead, he perishes miserably.

Verhoff, having regained the shore, with difficulty forces Snuders to pay him his reward, and then deliberately sits down to drown in a drunken orgy the horror which he feels rising within him at the awful deed he has committed. But the liquor merely serves to inflame his imagination, and it is not long before phantoms rise before him. He tries to cry out, but cannot; gulp after gulp of spirit does not cool the fire in his brain, and soon the room seems to be full of ghosts, which swell up huge and menacing. Tijen appears, then Trunski; Verhoff thinks they are real; he clutches at them; they vanish; and then they appear again, and Verhoff knows he is going mad. The end soon comes. Like a wild beast he rages round the room, frenzied with sheer terror, alternately praying and blaspheming, blood gathering in his eyes and foam upon his nostrils. And then at last he crashes down upon the floor; it is over; murder has avenged itself.