Chapter Six.
Gideon and Marta.
Night had almost fallen when Gideon reached his homestead on the seventh day after the trial. He had been, throughout the whole journey, a prey to the keenest misery. In the short and broken sleep which visited his distracted brain the image of Stephanus as he had last seen him, haunted his dreams. The dauntless mien and the noble courage with which his brother had met his doom; the puzzled, pathetic expression upon the face of the blind child; the belated revelation of love combined with a terrifying appeal for forgiveness which he had read in the face of the woman for whom his passion had never died, swept over the field of his consciousness like clouds across a storm-swept sky. He felt no remorse for what he had done; on the contrary, his inability to enjoy the revenge he had long panted for, was the cause of redoubled resentment against his enemy.
After greeting his family with forced cheerfulness, Gideon drank a cup of coffee and at once retired to bed, saying that he felt fatigued after his long journey. His wife, Aletta, was not deceived by his demeanour, but there was that in his face which caused her to forbear asking any questions.
Next morning Gideon tried to avoid everybody, and it was not until midday that Aletta contrived to satisfy her painful suspense in regard to the result of the trial. He was then standing at the back of the wagon-house with bent head and an air of painful preoccupation. He did not hear her approaching footsteps. When she laid a hesitating hand upon his arm he started as though he had been struck, and looked at her with troubled eyes.
“Gideon,” she said in a low and hurried tone—“tell me about Stephanus.”
“The wolf is in a trap,” he said with a savage laugh—“for ten long years he will have to bite the door before it opens.”
“Ten years”—repeated Aletta in an awed whisper—“poor Stephanus; I did not think it would have gone so hard with him.”
“Aletta,” he broke out wrathfully, “are you taking the part of this wolf—this jackal in a man’s skin, against me?”
“No—no—Gideon,—I do not take his part;—but ten years is such a long time.—And I was thinking of Marta and the children; they will never see him again.”
“And a good thing too. The murdering wild beast should have been hanged.”
In reality the wives of the brothers had, all through the weary course of the feud, been inclined to take the parts of their respective brothers-in-law against their husbands. Each, brought into daily contact with the black rancour displayed by her husband, had thought that the feeling could not possibly be so bad on the other side.
Weary as had been the days to Aletta and Adrian, those which followed were wearier still. A black cloud seemed to brood over the household. No one ever smiled. Each avoided the eyes of the others as though fearful of what the eyes might read or reveal. At each cheerless meal the silent, invisible presence of Stephanus seemed to take its seat; in the brightest sunlight its shadow seemed to darken the house.
More than once Aletta had been on the point of suggesting that advances might be made to Marta in her loneliness, but Gideon had lately got into the habit of bursting into such fury on the slightest provocation, that Aletta was afraid of irritating him and held her peace.
Gideon, also, had more than once thought of going to visit his sister-in-law, but the dread of again meeting what he had read in her eyes on the day of the trial held him back. It was currently known that Marta was in bad health and that Uncle Diederick had been called in to prescribe for her more than once.
Thus the weary days dragged on through three weary years, but the stricken household kept no count of time. In material things Gideon prospered. Each season the years came with unusual regularity, and his flocks and herds increased until he became rich among his fellows.
One day two figures were seen approaching from the direction of Stephanus’ homestead. They turned out to be those of the blind girl, Elsie, and a very diminutive Bushman lad named Kanu, who had grown up on the farm. Kanu had been captured as a child, years before, in the course of an exterminating raid upon some Bushman depredators at their stronghold in an almost inaccessible part of the Roggeveld Mountains.
Kanu was about sixteen years of age. From her early childhood he had devoted himself to the service of the blind girl; at last his devotion had grown to positive worship. In Kanu’s company Elsie would wander far and wide, over mountain and plain, in perfect safety.
The Bushman had picked up a smattering of Dutch, but still spoke his own tongue fluently, for there were a number of semi-domesticated Bushman servants on the farm—captives from different raids. Such raids were, no doubt, sometimes rendered necessary by the plundering propensities of the pygmy sons of Ishmael, but there was another side of the question:—where Bushmen were plentiful the Boers did not, as a rule, find it necessary to purchase slaves.
The blind child was led by her guide to the front door of the house, which stood open. The day was hot and the family were sitting at table, trying to hurry through their dismal midday meal. Elsie crossed the threshold without knocking and stood at her Uncle’s side. Her hair hung below her waist in a rich, yellow mass, and her eyes gleamed as they always did under the influence of excitement, and in appropriate light. The three sitting at the table sat and gazed at her in silent and startled surprise.
“Uncle Gideon,” she said in a clear, piercing voice.
“Well,” said Gideon in a voice of forced roughness, “what do you want?”
“My mother bids me tell you that she is dying, and that you must come to her at once.”
Gideon rose to his feet, his face twitching. Elsie slowly turned, held out her hand for the guiding twig which Kanu extended to her, and stepped swiftly forth.
Within the space of a few minutes Gideon sprang on a horse and galloped off in the direction of the homestead where the woman he loved lay dying. Marta sent one of the servants to fetch a span of oxen, and soon followed her husband, in a wagon.
When Gideon arrived at Marta’s homestead he could at once see that directions had been given as to the details of his reception. As he ascended the steep flight of steps which led to the voorkuis the door swayed open and revealed the weeping figure of Sara, his niece. Walking on tip-toe she beckoned to him to follow her, and led the way to an inner room, the door of which stood ajar. Gideon entered, every nerve in his body tingling with apprehension. Sara softly closed the door behind him, and then he heard her retreating footsteps upon the clay floor of the passage.
The dying woman lay propped up in bed, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted in a smile of loving welcome. She looked, for the moment, not more than twenty years of age. Her face carried Gideon back to the spring morning of long ago, when he met her for the first time, walking under the budding oaks of the Stellenbosch street. With a last, pathetic effort of coquetry, the poor remnant of her once-beautiful hair was spread over her shoulder. Her hand appeared for an instant from under the bed-clothes; it looked like the hand of a skeleton in a livid glove.
Gideon stood for a space looking into the smiling eyes of the woman whom he loved and sunning himself in their dying glow. The soiled years seemed to shrivel away like a burnt-up scroll, the past lived again in a borrowed glamour of lost joy that had never existed and his withered heart expanded like a rose in summer.
With a long-drawn sigh he sank to his knees at the side of the bed and pressed his lips hurriedly upon the tress of silky hair; then he drew hurriedly back, startled at his own temerity. Marta turned her head slightly until she could see his face. Her eyes became softer with the dew of happiness and a smile hovered upon her lips. Then she spoke:
“Listen—I am dying;—will you take my children and care for them?”
Gideon could not speak; he nodded his head and she proceeded:
“I only knew you loved me when it was too late... I waited for you to speak—then they said that you loved someone else—”
Gideon’s brain was busy recalling the long-past. Every obscure detail of the days of his brother’s courtship and his own bitter disappointment came back to him with strange distinctness. How had the misunderstanding arisen; who was to blame?—“Stephanus always hated you and I loved you all the time—Aletta need not know—I only tell you now that I am dying—”
Gideon tenderly took the wasted hand and laid it against his rugged cheek.
“My children—I love them—Let them not suffer for their father’s sin—”
“Wait, Marta,” said Gideon in a strained and trembling voice, “I must tell you—”
“There is nothing to tell—I know it all.—He got to know I loved you and he tried to kill you.—Forgive him, if you can, for my sake—”
“Wait, Marta,—I must tell you the truth—you are wrong—I must tell you the truth, even if it kills us both.”
The dying woman’s lips became compressed, and the colour began to fade from her cheeks. Gideon tried to move so that her eyes, full of startled interrogatory and the pain of apprehension, might not rest upon his face whilst he made his confession, but they followed and held his spell-bound. Then in a hoarse, broken murmur he said:
“Stephanus shot me by accident—I accused him falsely—because I hated him all my life.”
When he ceased speaking he drooped his head and hid his face among the bed-clothes next to Marta’s shoulder. A slight shudder went through the woman’s frame and then she ceased to breathe. Gideon kept his head bowed for a long time. When, by a torturing effort he lifted it, he saw a dead, ashen face lying on the pillow at his side,—the face of an old woman who seemed to have died in sharp agony.
When Gideon left the chamber of death he moved like a man in a dream. Mounting his horse mechanically he allowed the animal to stray homewards at a walk. He met the wagon in which Aletta was hurrying to the death-bed as fast as the team of oxen could bring her, but he passed it without recognition.
The pathway led past the spring, the scene of the three-years’ past tragedy. The day was hot and the horse turned, aside to drink as was its wont. It was not until the animal paused and bent its head to the water that the rider recognised the locality. He was quite calm and the environment in which he found himself seemed appropriate to his mood. He dismounted when the horse had finished drinking, led it away to a spot where it could graze, a few paces distant, and then returned to the water-side.
He went over the whole scene anew. There was the spot where he had sat sleeping; he stepped over and sat there again, in the same attitude. There Stephanus had approached through the bushes; yonder was the place where the struggle for possession of the gun had taken place and where he had ignominiously sunk to the ground beneath his brother’s superior strength. A little to the right was the green tussock upon which Stephanus, after wrenching the gun from his grasp, had stood and looked insulting defiance at him. He recalled the face which bore such a detestable resemblance to his own, and remembered its look of triumphant hate. He recalled the taunting words that Stephanus had uttered and his own insulting reply. Again he felt the sickening torture of the crashing bullet tearing through flesh and bone. Involuntarily he lifted quickly the half-crippled limb; a torturing twinge shot through it and almost made him scream.
His thoughts swung back—searching among the mists of old memory for a clue to the one that had wrecked his life by telling falsehoods about him to the woman he loved, and who, he now knew for the first time, had loved him. Who could it be? None but the brother whose life he had been fool enough to save and who had always been his evil genius.
The scene he had just lived through was too recent for him to take in its full significance. He knew that he had caused Marta’s death by his confession—which he now bitterly regretted having made, and he wondered if they should meet in the next world whether she would hate him for what he had done. He had left the house of death with the full intention of confessing his transgression and expiating it in the fullest manner. It was not that he had made any resolution to this effect, but rather that a full confession, with its consequences, seemed to be the only possible outcome of what had happened.
Now, however, he determined to maintain silence. It was not that he dreaded the consequences of a confession to himself—his life was too full of misery for him to dread that—but rather that his somewhat waning hate of his brother had been reinforced by Marta’s words, and he could not bring himself to abate a jot of that brother’s bondage. Had it been possible to confess his sin without benefiting Stephanus by so doing, he felt that he would have told his tale to the first human creature he met, were it only a Bushman.
He had saved his brother’s life; it was not much, after all, to demand ten years of that life for the exigencies of his revenge. Stephanus, of course, deserved his punishment richly. What business had he to interfere with the gun at all? Every despiteful act,—every provocative detail, every maddening annoyance to which Stephanus had subjected him during the long, hate-blackened years of the feud, came back and grinned at him.
He found himself wondering whether anybody had been listening at the door when he made his confession, and the sudden dread of this contingency took precedence of every other consideration for the time. Well,—if he had been overheard he would abide by the result and make a full confession; if not his lips should remain sealed.
After the funeral, which Gideon attended with outward calmness, Aletta remained at the homestead for a few days arranging for the removal of the two girls. Uncle Diederick, who had been called in professionally, but had arrived on the scene after Marta’s death, said a simple prayer over the grave which was dug on the hill-side just behind the homestead. Sara was convulsed with grief, but Elsie hardly shed a tear. She and her mother had always been strangers; now the blind child’s utter ignorance of convention kept her from feigning a grief she did not feel. Gideon’s mind was now so far relieved, that he had no longer the fear of anyone having overheard his confession.
Uncle Diederick arranged to come and live at Stephanus’ farm and manage it for the benefit of the two children, until Stephanus’ release from prison. Accordingly, the “hartebeeste house” was abandoned—Jacomina having, in the meantime, carefully packed up all the drugs, herbs and surgical appliances in boxes and skin bags, and placed them in the wagon.
Thus, within a week of Marta’s death Uncle Diederick and his daughter were settled in their new dwelling. For months afterwards weary invalids from a distance continued to arrive at the “hartebeeste house” and to learn to their dismay that the physician had departed and left no address.
Chapter Seven.
How Gideon Wandered, and how Elsie Overheard his Prayer.
At the period at which the action of this story is laid the only settled parts of the Cape Colony lay well to the south of the rugged mountain chain, the eastern portion of which is called the “Roggeveld” or “Rye land.” It was in a valley which cleft the range that the farm of the van der Walts was situated.
The Boer has ever been intolerant of near neighbours; he likes to feel that the utmost expanse his glance can sweep over is his, to use or neglect as suits him. He has a great objection to any habitation being within sight of his homestead.
For centuries the government tried to prevent the expansion of the Colony to a distance from the central authority at Cape Town, but the efforts were as useless as though one were to try to control quicksilver on a slanting board with the hand. The enactment of the most stringent laws was of no avail to prevent the more adventurous spirits from seeking their fortune in the vast, mysterious hinterland. Such men looked upon the heathen as their inheritance and on the wilderness as their portion.
Steadfast in his narrow faith, tenacious as steel to his limited purpose, valiant as any crusader that charged the Saracens on the plains of Palestine, the primitive Boer was of the texture of the strongest of the sons of the earth.
Such a typical Boer was Tyardt van der Waldt, the father of Stephanus and Gideon. He had come to this lonely valley down which the yet-unpolluted Tanqua stream flowed through its waving sedges,—far beyond the camp of the boldest pioneer. His wagon was his castle of strength; he trusted in the Lord of Hosts, and he kept his powder religiously dry. He found hill and valley stocked with the great beasts of the desert, and on the blood of these he slaked his nature’s needs, thanking God for the draught. Upon the mountain side roamed the noble eland; in the thorny copses the stately koodoo herded,—wild cattle with which Providence had stocked the pasture for his use. Here was his Canaan. More fortunate than Moses, he possessed it,—whilst vigour yet thrilled his foot and hand.
At night the deep-rumbling growl of the marauding lion would be heard in the scrub below the cattle-kraal, and the trembling touch of wife and children as they clung to him, made the strong man rejoice in his strength. Every considerable mountain-cave harboured his Amalekite, the Bushman,—and him he hewed in pieces before the Lord whenever opportunity offered.
To the Northward of the Roggeveld the wide and usually waterless plains of what is yet known as Bushmanland stretched away indefinitely. Arid as these plains are, and apparently always have been, they supported an enormous amount of animal life. Many of the larger fauna of South Africa can exist for an indefinite time without drinking; some, such as the gemsbok or oryx, can dispense with it altogether, owing to the instinct which teaches them to dig for succulent tubers in the arid sand dunes, from the surface of which every vestige of vegetation may have disappeared.
Many a time had Tyardt van der Walt trekked over the mountain chain with his wagon and penetrated a few days’ journey into the waste. Then he would return with a load of game of kinds different from those found among the mountains. A sense of danger, which is the salt of life to some natures, lent zest to these expeditions. This danger was by no means imaginary; the bones of many an adventurous Boer have been gnawed by the jackals of Bushmanland.
Gideon had, as a boy, accompanied his father upon some of the later of these expeditions. Now, when his load of unrecognised remorse hung heavily upon him, he sighed his tired soul towards the vast and vague unknown which lay, rich in the glamour of the unknown and the mysterious, beyond the frowning mountain rampart. There, he had come to think, Peace must surely have her habitation; into that solitude the ghosts of men and things could not follow. He put his wagon in order, loaded it with provisions and ammunition enough to last for several months, and went forth into the wilderness.
Aletta, reminiscent of disasters, opposed the idea, but Gideon was not to be withheld from his purpose. The mind of the unhappy wife, in whose heart love for her husband still dwelt, in spite of half a lifetime of neglect, was full of apprehension. Many were the current tales of Boers who had gone northward upon hunting trips, as her husband was now about to go, and who never again had been heard of. Lured by the fugacious verdure upon the shining track of some vagrant thunderstorm which had filled the “pans” with water, and made them look like silver shields strewn upon some tourney-field of the gods, they had ventured farther and farther, forgetting that the thirsty sun was busy behind them, drinking up the moisture and cutting off their retreat. Other narratives told of cheerful camp-fires with men sitting around them, tired after a long day’s hunting. Suddenly would come a silent flight of deadly arrows. Then would the fires be hurriedly quenched, and a volley fired at random into the darkness in the vain hope of smiting a foe as subtle as a serpent, as nimble as a swallow and as noiseless as a ghost. Afterwards the homeward struggle of a few desperate survivors,—those still unwounded trying to alleviate the agony of their dying comrades, well knowing that their every step would be doggedly followed by an implacable enemy, seeking a fitting opportunity of inflicting further slaughter by the same cruel means.
However, after Gideon’s departure, life at Elandsfontein took on a deep peacefulness. The reaction from the constant dread of violence on Gideon’s part was such a relief that something like happiness seemed as though it were about to dawn upon the stricken home.
Aletta learned, to her surprise, that the domestic relations in Stephanus’ household had never been satisfactory. Bit by bit she learned from Sara things which threw a strange light upon Marta’s home life. It appeared that for the past two years Marta had not been right in her mind. She had been in the habit of sitting silent and alone for days together, not answering when spoken to, and refusing to eat. Ever since her husband’s conviction she had manifested the strongest objection to his name being mentioned. This had naturally had the effect of estranging Elsie completely from her. Even Sara, to whom the mother had formerly been passionately attached, had recently been treated with indifference.
The two girls now seemed to find in the woman who had always hitherto been lonely, what they had missed in their own mother. Aletta had always felt the greatest pity for Stephanus; knowing, as she did, the provocation he had sustained, and the rancour Gideon had shown. A sympathetic bond was thus set up between the three, and the ever-present sorrow was shorn of some of its more painful features.
Insensibly Elsie became the centre of the household. She was now twelve years of age. In spite of the fact that her intellect as well as her intuitions had developed to a strange and almost unnatural extent, her stature and features were still those of a very young child. With her pallid and spiritual countenance, and her yellow hair hanging in a thick mass below her waist, the blind girl with the wonderful eyes startled and impressed all who saw her, and seemed, in her rugged surroundings, like a being from another world.
Elsie’s aunt and sister seemed to take a pride in decking out her strange beauty with whatever they could obtain in the way of simple finery, such as infrequent wandering hawkers brought to the lonely homestead. Even in those days traders used to wander over the land with wagons loaded with simple necessaries, and there always was a box full of such things as women take delight in, the contents of which were looked upon almost with awe by the simple daughters of the wilderness. The best material in the simple stock would be purchased for Elsie’s dress;—the brightest ribbon for her hair.
Kanu, the Bushman, was still her guide as she wandered about at will. He would have long since followed the fashion of his kind and fled back to the wilderness that gave him birth had it not been for his attachment to Elsie. One characteristic of the blind child was that she was utterly fearless. She seemed to dread nothing. One thing alone seemed to cause her any uneasiness:—the hoarse roaring of the baboons with which the black rocks that crowned the mountains on either side of the Tanqua valley abounded. She seemed to read a menace in the guttural tones, and a pained expression could be noticed upon her face whenever they were heard.
Gideon returned safely after an absence of four months. His expedition had been successful in some respects; he had slaughtered much game; he had brought back all his cattle and horses. But the peace he had gone to seek had eluded him. In the daytime, whenever the divine rage of the chase was upon him, he would almost forget the past,—but at night, which is the season in which those who love the desert feel the full force of its mysterious and almost rapturous calm, the memory of his sin hovered over him like a bat and kept sleep and rest from his tired soul. Sometimes he would seem to catch glimpses of the sad face of the Peace-Angel hovering pityingly afar,—desiring but unable to succour him from his tormentor.
After he had spent a month or two at the farm Gideon again became violently restless. Elsie’s presence seemed to cause him keen discomfort. When he spoke, as he seldom did whenever he could maintain silence, the sightless eyes of the child would train themselves upon his face, until the guilty man found himself overcome by a sense of inquietude which drove him away from the range of the accusing look.
A party of restless spirits visited Elandsfontein on their way northward in search of adventure and large game. Gideon at once made up his mind to join them. He had been wishing for another opportunity of getting away, but had dreaded going again alone. The shadow of the feud had caused an estrangement between himself and the neighbouring farmers such as made it impossible for him to join any of the hunting parties got up from time to time among his acquaintances. But these people were strangers; the occasion offered the very opportunity he had sought. The hunters were poor, their cattle and horses were of inferior quality and their stores were meagre. Gideon was rich, and his joining the expedition suited the strangers as well as it suited him. So Gideon van der Walt once more set his course towards the wilderness, in the vain hope of finding the footsteps of Peace.
Nearly a year elapsed before he returned; he looked then at least five years older than when he had started. He had penetrated farther into the wilderness than any European had previously done, and his course could almost have been followed from the whitening bones of the game he had slaughtered. But the boundless desert had proved to be as close a prison to his guilty soul as the valley where stood his home. He had quarrelled with his companions and came home alone. But almost immediately the old restlessness fell upon him, and he longed anew for the wastes. This time, however, he would go alone. He blamed his companions for most of the dissatisfactions of his last excursion. It was springtime when he returned; he would go forth once more when the first thunderstorms trailed over the desert. Perhaps Peace dwelt farther away than he had yet reached. He would find her dwelling even if to do so he had to traverse the length of the continent, and reach that Egypt of which he had read in the Bible, where the Lord loosed the Children of Israel from their bitter bondage.
A few days before Gideon’s projected departure Elsie and Kanu were resting in the shade close to the spring in the kloof, after a long ramble on the mountain side. It was afternoon and the sun smote hard upon the drowsy earth.
“I see the Baas coming this way again,” said the Bushman. “I wonder why he comes here so often.”
Elsie, although no doubt of her father’s guilt had ever formulated itself in her mind, had developed an instinctive distrust of her uncle. Perhaps it was because he had done what she had never experienced from another—persistently avoided all communication with her.
“It is a strange thing,” continued Kanu, in a whisper, “but I saw him coming from here yesterday with the tears running from his eyes.”
It was Elsie’s habit to sit, silent, motionless and absorbed in her thoughts, for long periods. In her present situation she was completely concealed by the fringe of thick scrub which grew around the margin of the spring. The Bushman instinctively crept into concealment close behind her and lay with every keen sense alert and a glint of curiosity in his bright, restless, suspicious eyes.
The heavy, tired foot-fall of Gideon thudded nearer and nearer until he stood,—motionless, with folded arms and downcast head, at the side of the still, clear pool. His intent look seemed to pierce the dark and limpid depths as though searching for a sign. He stood thus for several minutes; then he dropped heavily upon his knees and covered his face with his hands.
Then issued from the lips of Gideon van der Walt a prayer such as one might imagine being uttered from the heart of a lost soul upon whom the brazen gates of the Pit have closed for ever. His petition was that God might give him forgetfulness and sleep,—just a little slumber when he laid himself down and folded his hands upon his breast in the night time.—Just a little forgetfulness of the past when the sun sank and all the world except himself lost itself in happy dreams or happier unconsciousness.
Then he poured out his guilt in words which, although broken and incoherent, left no possible doubt as to their significance. He bargained with his Maker: His brother’s life,—the life which he had saved,—was it not, in a sense, his to dispose of? And although Stephanus had not done the deed for which he was suffering punishment, had he not, by his heinous hate protracted through long years, deserved the heaviest chastisement that it was possible for him to receive?
From all this storm of agonised and incoherent sophistry, only one clear idea reached the understanding of blind Elsie,—the innocence of her father—the knowledge that he was suffering cruel punishment for a crime he had never committed. Until now she had never doubted her father’s guilt. Knowing the provocation he had received, she had made excuses for him, and her very soul had moulded itself on the conception that he was suffering just retribution for a broken law. The conviction of her father’s guilt had never diminished her love for him. On the contrary, its effect was to heighten her affection to the most exalted pitch. And now,—to know that he was innocent. The clash of joy and indignation in Elsie’s brain was such as almost to make her swoon.
Gideon arose from his knees and wandered slowly away with bent head and set face. He felt that his prayer had not been answered. Every outburst of this kind had seemed to rivet anew the shackles which bound him to his load.
Elsie and Kanu sat still until the sun sank, and then arose. Mechanically the blind child put forth her hand for the guiding willow-wand which she knew would be stretched out for her grasp. As the pair walked slowly towards the homestead the dusk was glooming down. Elsie’s brain was in a whirling turmoil when she set forth. Only one thought stood fast, and that was as moveless as a rock in a stormy sea: To save her father—that was the task to which her mind set itself. But how? For the first time she bitterly regretted her blindness. Poor, ignorant child, shut up in a cavern of formless darkness,—what could she do? But before half the homeward road had been traversed, the turmoil of her mind had ceased and her thoughts had crystallised around a purpose as hard as steel.
At the supper-table it was noticed that the blind child’s face was paler and more set than usual, and that the lustre of her eyes was like red, molten gold,—but no word escaped her lips. It surprised Aletta and Sara to find that Elsie did not reply when spoken to, but she had been so long a law unto herself that no particular notice was wont to be taken of her peculiarities.
Supper over, she did not, as was her wont, go at once to her bed in the little room at the end of the front “stoep,” where she was in the habit of sleeping alone, but sat in the “voorhuis” until all the others had gone to rest. This was only “one of Elsie’s ways,” which were different from other people’s. To her the darkness had no more terrors than the day.
Next morning no trace of either Elsie or Kanu could be found. This circumstance was only rendered remarkable by the fact that her bed had not been slept in, and that a warm cape of brayed lambskin which she was in the habit of wearing in cold weather, as well as a loaf of bread from the “voorhuis” cupboard and a large piece of mutton from the kitchen, had disappeared.
Search was made, but no trace of the missing ones could be found. Word was passed on from farm to farm,—from one lonely squatter’s camp to another, until the whole country side for hundreds of miles was on the alert. The mountain haunts of the Bushmen were ransacked—with the usual accompaniment of slaughter and pillage,—the secret places of the desert were searched,—but without success. Had Kanu been found he would have been shot at sight—so great was the indignation against him. Poor Kanu was tried, found guilty, and sentenced for the crime of kidnapping; fortunately, the defendant made default.
Thus another fold of shadow was added to the gloom which wrapped the stricken household. Gideon, whose mind was ever on the alert upon the devious planes of thought, speculated upon the mystery through the preconception that it contained some element which had been lost sight of. Knowing Kanu as he did he could not conceive that the Bushman would have harmed Elsie. An idea took root in his brain which bore a sudden fruit of deadly fear. Setting spurs to his horse he left the search-party on the hill-side and galloped down to the spring at the margin of which he had made his wild confession. Under a thick curtain of shrub a few yards from where he had knelt he found the undergrowth crushed down as though someone had recently sat upon it, and, close by, where a mole had thrown up a heap of loose earth, was the print of a small foot, freshly indented. The discovery turned him sick with horror.
In a few minutes, however, he laughed at his ridiculous fears. Nevertheless, a speculation which, he persuaded himself over and over again was quite preposterous, kept persistently coming back and grinning at him,—even after it had been driven away over and over again with contumely, by his better understanding.
The days came and went with dreary monotony. One by one the search-parties returned from their fruitless seekings. After hurried preparations Gideon again set face towards the burning northern deserts, and resumed his vain quest for the habitation of Peace.
Chapter Eight.
Elsie’s Quest.
The excitement consequent upon the battle of Blauwberg and the conquest of the Cape by England had just died down, and the inhabitants of Cape Town were involuntarily coming to the conclusion that the English were not such stern tyrants as they had been led to expect.
Juffrouw du Plessis and her two daughters were sitting in their garden behind the oleander hedge, through an opening in which they could look out over the lovely expanse of Table Bay. The cottage, embowered in oak trees and with the north front covered by the soft green foliage of an immense vine, was built upon one of the terraces which lead up to the foot of Table Mountain, and which have, long since, been absorbed by the expanding city.
Behind the cottage the frowning crags of the massive mountain had hidden their rigour beneath the “Table Cloth” of snowy cloud, whose tossing, ever-changing folds and fringes were flung like foam into the blue vault of the sky by the boisterous “South-Easter” which had given it birth. But in spite of the turmoil overhead, no breath of rude air disturbed the halcyon quiet which seemed to have spread a wing of wardship over the dwelling.
An old slave who, notwithstanding his wrinkled skin and frosted hair, was still of powerful frame, was working with great deliberation among the flowers,—where large cabbage-roses lifted their heads high over violet-bordered beds that were sweet with mignonette and gay with pinks. The Juffrouw was of Huguenot descent and showed her French origin in the alertness of her movements and the sensibility of her features. She was the wife of a merchant who carried on a flourishing business in the city.
“Mother,” suddenly said Helena, the younger girl, “while you were out this morning I met a blind girl with the longest and yellowest hair I have ever seen.”
“A blind girl.—Where was she?”
“On the footpath behind the house.”
“And where did she come from?”
“I do not know; she would not tell me. I think she must be mad, for she said she was going to talk to the Governor and she asked me where he lived.”
“What an extraordinary thing.”
“Yes. She was walking with a little Hottentot man, who was leading her by means of a stick. She said they were both very hungry, so I gave them some bread and milk. I left them sitting at the side of the path, eating, and when I went back to look for them they were gone.”
Elsie and Kanu sat at the side of a stream in a deep ravine in the western face of the Drakenstein Mountain range. Around them was a mass of dense scrub which was gay with lovely flowers. The child drooped wearily as she sat with her swollen feet in the cool, limpid water. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, her lips parted, and her eyes shone with strange brilliancy. It was the morning of the sixth day after they had stolen away from Elandsfontein. Kanu looked gaunt with hunger. Famine seemed to glare out of his hollow eyes. In spite of the proverbial toughness of the Bushman, he was almost in the last stage of exhaustion. A belt made of twisted bark was tightly bound around his waist, and a bundle of grass and moss, rolled into a ball, was forced between it and his body, over the abdomen.
“Kanu,—how much farther do you think Cape Town is?” asked Elsie in a tired voice.
“I have heard the people say that the town lies under a big mountain with a flat top,” replied the Bushman,—“I can see such a mountain far away across the sand-flats. We will reach it to-morrow night if your feet do not get too sore.”
The child drew up her feet from out of the water and passed her fingers gently over them. Even this slight touch made her wince. She threw back her head with a movement of impatience. Her eyes were swimming in tears. Beside her, on the grass, lay a pair of tattered veldschoens.
“Kanu,—do you think we will reach there in time to see the Governor to-morrow night?”
“I do not know; we might not be able to find his house in the dark,—and perhaps he goes to bed early.”
“But, Kanu,—everyone must know the Governor’s house, so you can knock at the first door we pass and ask where it is.”
“Yes,—we can try.”
“But, Kanu,—I must get my father out of prison at once when we arrive. I am sure the Governor will come from his house and open the door as soon as I tell him,—even if he is in bed and asleep when we get there.”
“I do not think you will see Baas Stephanus to-morrow night,” replied the Bushman, after a pause.—“I heard from a man who had been there that the prison is not in Cape Town but in a place they call an island, in the sea.”
Elsie hid her face in her hands and burst into a passion of tears. She had held out against hunger and fatigue, against exposure to chilling rain and scorching sun, her thoughts strained to the conception of “Cape Town” as an objective. Often, when she was swaying with exhaustion, the words “father”—“Cape Town”—murmured half under her breath, would brace her flagging sinews. And now it was bitter to hear that her father was not in Cape Town after all, but farther off still. She had set her heart on meeting him immediately after her arrival. The Governor was sure to be a good, pitiful man;—otherwise the great king across the sea, who now owned the whole country, would not have sent him to rule the land. As soon as ever she had told her tale, he would tell one of his soldiers to take her down at once to the prison, which he would open with a big key. Then her father would look round and, seeing his little blind daughter, would know that she had saved him,—which was more than people with good eyesight had been able to do.
Over and over again the poor little child had rehearsed the scene of the meeting in her mind. The groove was well worn, and she followed the details accurately, step by step. She knew the feel of the big key; she had asked the kind Governor to let her hold it, and then that she might carry it down to the prison, instead of the soldier,—but the Governor said that he could not do this because it was against the law to let anyone have the key unless he were a soldier carrying a big gun. Then the long walk down the street,—and how the soldier walked too slow, and how she knew without being told the direction of the prison. Everything was quite clear until the key grated in the lock, as the key did in the lock of the barn at home,—and the heavy door swung back on its hinges. At this point imagination died in a swoon of bliss.
However, Kanu comforted her with the assurance that the island was close to Cape Town; he was quite sure his informant had told him it could be seen from the city. But she had to surrender the hope of seeing her father immediately after her arrival, and she felt that her former conception of the meeting and its prelude would have to be somewhat modified. She had rehearsed the scene so often that it had become utterly real to her; to alter it now gave her the keenest pain.
Kanu’s woodcraft had stood Elsie in good stead on the journey, but it was all he could do to procure food sufficient to enable the child to bear up against the terrible hardships incidental to such an undertaking. The Heavens had been propitious, in so far that but little rain had fallen, but the cold had been severe in the rugged mountain tracts they were obliged to travel through. Water had been scarce at times and cooking had always been difficult.
For these poor wanderers had to avoid frequented ways, and, even thus, to travel only by night, Kanu knew well enough that if they were seen by any European they would be stopped and sent home. So every morning at daybreak they camped in the most suitable spot to be found in their vicinity. Here, on a bed of soft moss or grass, carefully prepared for her by the tender hands of her savage guide, Elsie would slumber through the day, while Kanu foraged for food, and, after ascending some eminence, surveyed the country with reference to the night’s course of travel.
Kanu’s adventures were sometimes alarming. Once he came face to face with a Boer who was evidently in a bad temper, for he unslung his gun and, without a word of challenge, fired. Kanu only saved himself by dropping behind a rock. Then he fled, incontinently, before his natural enemy had time to reload. More than the Boers he dreaded his own kind. The wild men had been so often treacherously deceived by tamed specimens of their own race who, after gaining their confidence, betrayed them to the Boers, that any stranger with the taint of civilisation upon him was liable to be put to death with horrible tortures.
In his own native desert Kanu would have had no difficulty in finding enough of bulbs, roots, lizards and other local products wherewith to satisfy the needs of his own appetite, but the farther south his steps trended the more unfamiliar the flora and minor fauna became. Even the little of this description of produce he found was of no use to Elsie; for her he had to steal, and it was in doing this that he ran into greatest danger.
His habitual method of plundering was to locate a flock of sheep or goats, crawl around the bases of hills and up and down gullies until he got close to it, and then hang on its skirts until an opportunity offered for seizing and stifling a lamb or a kid.
On the day before reaching the kloof where Elsie had the bitter disappointment of hearing that her father was not at Cape Town after all, but at some island beyond it, Kanu had, after waiting nearly all day for his opportunity, captured a lamb from a flock which was crossing the gully in which he lay waiting. This lamb had loitered behind with its mother,—the shepherd being, at the time, engaged in beating up stragglers in another locality. Kanu carried the prey into a deep, forest-filled hollow. Here he lit a fire of dry wood, which gave off no smoke, and roasted the toothsome carcase whole. Reserving the entrails for his own share, he stripped the roasted flesh from the bones and carried it back to Elsie, who was almost fainting with hunger.
Being now so near their goal and in a country of well-defined roads and many travellers, who did not appear to take much notice of one another, Kanu consented to make a start whilst it was yet daylight, so the strange pair emerged from their concealment and moved slowly down the rugged side of the mountain. When they reached the sandy flat at its foot they set boldly out towards the great mountain whose snowy cowl shone white as a snowdrift under the clear October sky.
They walked on until deep into the night. Elsie, buoyed up by her purpose and almost unconscious of her swollen feet, would still have pressed forward. She declared that she felt no fatigue, but Kanu insisted on her lying down and then she fell into a deep sleep which lasted until dawn.
As the light grew Kanu was astonished to find that the mountain looked nearly as far off as ever. The unfamiliar atmosphere—close to the level of the sea had deceived him. This day turned out to be the most fatiguing of all. The sun smote fiercely upon the red sand and water was scarce and brackish when obtained. However, when the sun sank they were nearly at the foot of the mountain. The soft, steady breeze brought up the thunder of the surf from the Muizenberg beach, and filled the soul of the Bushman with dismay at the unaccustomed sound. He had never been near the sea, so the thrilling diapason of the moving waters was full of terrors.
“Kanu, are you sure that this is the mountain that Cape Town is under? Tell me, what it is like.”
Elsie had dropped in the road from sheer fatigue, and Kanu had borne her to a small copse, only a few yards away.
“The side of the mountain is black with trees but its top is white with a cloud that never moves.”
“Yes,—that is the mountain,” said the child in a tone of relief; “my father told me that it always had a white cloud upon its top.”
Then her head drooped and she fell asleep.
Kanu tightened his belt and mounted guard. In the desert, among the haunts of the fiercest beasts, he would have lain down after a few simple precautions, and felt perfectly safe. Here, near the dwellings of Christians, he felt—and with reason—uneasy. There was a small quantity of meat left, and the smell of it assailed his nostrils, made keen as those of a pointer by famine. How he longed for that meat,—for only one bite. The savage in his breast seized him as it were by the throat every now and then and tried to hurl him at the morsel. But it was Elsie’s, he told himself,—all she had to sustain herself with on the morrow, when there would be still a long walk before her. At length he fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamt of sumptuous banquets for some delightful seconds.
Another tug at the belt. Well, it would soon be morning, and then this great, powerful, beneficent Governor whom Elsie knew of and talked such a lot about, would surely give them something for breakfast.
When day broke the mist had drawn away from the mountain, the huge bulk of which stood out, robed in purple and edged with the gold of the unarisen sun. Elsie slept long and deeply, and woke to a passionate flood of accusing tears when she found that the sun was already high.
As they walked along the well-beaten road they met other sojourners. The savage instinct in Kanu prompted him to hide in the bushes whenever he saw anyone approaching; but, when he found that of the many passers-by none attempted to interfere with them, he merely bent his head and hurried furtively past. No houses were yet in sight, except two square structures high up on the shoulders of the mountain. These were the watch-houses from which, in yet older times, the approach of the Indian Fleet was wont to be signalled to the Castle. The Bushman devoutly hoped that the Governor did not live in either of these, for he knew that Elsie, weak as she was, would never be able to make the ascent.
Anon they reached the shores of Table Bay, and the wide expanse of water filled the Bushman’s soul with deep awe. The scent of the sea stung the flagging blood of the spent child to new vigour; the “whish-whish” of the wavelets and the wild, strange cries of the sea-birds—perhaps they had flown across from the island where her father was waiting for her—spoke to her strained ear in tones of sweetness and mystery, which thrilled through her to the very depths of her being. Her fatigue and her lacerated feet were forgotten; she seemed to tread on air.
At length Kanu gave a sudden exclamation;—the goal of their terrible endeavours was at last in sight. There, shimmering in the soft, opaline haze, lay the lovely city, its white flat-topped houses embowered in trees, whilst the bright green slopes surrounding softened the contrast between its peaceful beauty and the mighty embodied desolation which seemed to prop the sky above it.
Elsie did not speak, but her face lit up and her eyes flashed with almost unearthly gleams. She felt that she was now at length, after all her sore travail, about to meet her father—her father who, innocent, had been torn from her and cast into prison among the vilest of men. Sweetest of all was the thought that she, in her own weak hands, was bearing to him the precious gift of freedom. In imagination she was already passing her hands over his face, as she had been wont to do when she wanted to read his mood, and smoothing out the lines of suffering. The bliss was almost painful in its intensity.
“Kanu,—Oh, Kanu—we are nearly there; are we not?”
“Yes,—but I never thought there were so many houses in the whole world. It would take half an hour on a fresh horse to get to the farthest I can see.”
“Kanu,—I suppose the Governor lives in the biggest house; don’t you think so?”
“Yes,—but there are so many big houses that I do not know where to look for the biggest.”
The Bushman had been on the point of asking more than one of the people whom they had passed, in the street to direct them to the Governor’s house, but he had invariably lost courage at the last moment. In those days there was little traffic in the Cape Town streets except in the late afternoon, when many carriages were to be seen. During the heat of the day all, gentle and simple, retired for the siesta. Thus the wanderers reached the centre of the city without attracting any attention, and without meeting anyone but a few slaves, who were out executing errands.
At length they paused before what Kanu felt sure must be the Governor’s house. It was a large building, several storeys high, and had a lofty, spacious “stoep” surrounded by heavy iron railings, which overlooked the street. The big windows were flanked by bright green shutters which had been thrown back against the wall.
A sound of music issued through the wide, open door,—interspersed, every now and then, with loud bursts of laughter. Yes,—the Governor must certainly live here; he and his friends were, doubtless, holding revel inside. A steep flight of steps led up to one end of the stoep; these Kanu mounted, leading Elsie by the hand.
The Bushman paused before the open doorway and looked in. The splendour appalled him. Rich mats of varied colour covered the floor; wonderful coloured objects hung upon the walls; a large glass case stood upon a table just before him. It was full of clear water, in which numbers of golden fishes darted to and fro,—red light flashing from their scales. Yes, this was surely the house he had been seeking.
As he paused, shrinking back against Elsie who was trying to push him forward, a door suddenly opened on the other side of the room and a man as burly as any Boer Kanu had ever seen emerged, walking unsteadily. He was dressed in blue cloth with bright buttons, and had a funny-looking glazed hat placed sideways on his head. At first he seemed to be unaware that there was anyone but himself in the room. When, however, he became conscious of the presence of Elsie and her companion he started, and paused unsteadily, hiccoughing.
“Sam,” he shouted to someone in the next room, “come and look at this.”
Sam came. He also walked unsteadily. He was nearly as big as his companion and was similarly dressed.
“Well, Sam,—what do you make of it?”
“It gets over me, Cap’n,” said Sam, after a pause of anxious scrutiny.
“Well,—I’ve been round the world and I’ve never seen hair like that—Say, my lass, where do you hail from?”
Kanu replied in Dutch, asking if the Governor lived there, and if he were at home.
“Dry up with that monkey-chatter, or I’ll wring your neck,” rasped the irate Captain. Kanu shrank back in dread, pressing Elsie behind him. The Captain lurched over to the child and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“My lass,—I’ve a little girl at Southampton who looks like you, but you can show her your heels as far as hair goes.—Why—Sam—the child’s blind.”
The Captain had sat down on a chair, drawn Elsie towards him by the shoulders, and looked into her face at close quarters. When his eyes met hers something penetrated to his perceptions through the fumes of the liquor he had drunk and told him she was blind. Sam came forward and had a look. He did not believe the child was blind, and said so. She was just a beggar, shamming. He had often seen the same kind of thing on London Bridge.
The Captain roughly, but kindly, drew the child again towards him. Elsie kept passive and silent in his hands. Perhaps this was one of the Governor’s friends,—or even the Governor himself. She read his character by his touch, and trusted him, but she had shrunk away from Sam.
“Come, my lass,—you look tired and hungry; is it some dinner you want?”
Elsie, feeling that this remark was directly addressed to her, replied in Dutch, using almost the same words as Kanu had used.
“I cannot understand this blooming lingo,” growled the Captain—“Sam,—call the waiter.”
The waiter, a black boy, who spoke both Dutch and English well, came in and interpreted. The Captain was mystified; Sam was sure that the whole thing was a “plant,” and growled an advice to the Captain to keep a careful guard upon his silver watch.
Then the landlady was called. She, good woman, was too busy to be much interested. However, the Captain sent for some food, which he gave to Elsie. She ate a little and passed the rest on to Kanu, who ate it wolfishly. The Captain sent for another plateful, which Kanu disposed of with great rapidity. The Captain—and even Sam—became interested. The Bushman was asked, through the waiter, if he could eat any more. He replied in the affirmative, so another, and after that yet another—plateful was brought. This kind of thing might have gone on indefinitely, had not a young man, who looked like a merchant’s clerk, come and taken possession of the Captain for business purposes.
As he was going away, Elsie arrested him with a cry, and when he turned for a moment she begged pathetically to be told if the house she was in was the Governor’s, and, if not, where his house was. The Captain tossed sixpence to the black waiter and told him to take the “monkey-chap,”—for thus he designated Kanu,—down the street and show him where the Governor berthed.
The waiter, fully persuaded that he had to do with two lunatics, hurried them up one street and down another at the further end of which stood a large white building.
“There,” said he to Kanu, “is where the Governor lives.”
Then he turned round and bolted.