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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.
The judges did their best to achieve this object, for Erberveld was sentenced to be impaled alive, broken on the wheel, his hands and head cut off, and his body quartered. Why they omitted hanging and burning from the list I can not imagine. The sentence was carried out the contemporary accounts record that he endured his fate with silent fortitude and his head is on the wall to-day.
"Then you may do a great service to me and to another. Go to Jacatra in Batavia, and ask for Pieter Erberveld. Hendrik van der Have tells him to cease before it is too late, before the thing becomes accursed. Tell him this. You will have done well, and I shall sleep again. Give him the message " The voice did not stop, so much as fade away unfinished.
Atop the wall, transfixed by a spear-point, is an object which, despite its many coats of whitewash, is still recognizable as a human skull. Set in the wall is a tablet bearing this inscription: "In detested memory of the traitor, Peter Erberveld, who was executed. No one will be permitted to build, lay bricks or plant on this spot, either now or in the future. Batavia, April 14, 1772."
Erberveld was a half-caste agitator who had conspired with certain disaffected natives to launch a revolt, massacre all the Dutch in Batavia, and have himself proclaimed king. Fortunately for the Dutch, the plot was betrayed through the faithlessness of a native girl with whom Erberveld was infatuated.
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