A Vendetta of the Desert Part 8

Kanu now tried to shape his course towards the harbour of the previous night, trying to avoid the more frequented streets. But the instinct by means of which the Bushman could find his way unerringly through the desert s.p.a.ces in the deepest darkness, was useless to him here, in an unnatural environment. He had lost all perception of distance, direction and locality.

But yonder, impa.s.sive above this scene of persecution and confusion, towered the bastioned crags of the great mountain. This at least was a wild, natural object Kanu turned towards it as a drowning man turns towards an islet suddenly seen close at hand in a waste of waters, and pressed up the steepening slope. The shouts of the horrible boys became fainter and fainter as the waifs struggled up the rocky terraces. It was sundown before they reached a rugged ledge at the foot of the main precipice. Here were thick bushes and great irregular ma.s.ses of rock scattered formlessly about; between them the tough mountain gra.s.s was thickly matted. Elsie sank to the ground and lay as if dead. She had got beyond tears; even the sense of pain had nearly died in her.

Fortunately, Kanu still had his wallet, and in it was the piece of bread which their kind entertainer had given them in the morning. There was a bright trickle of cool water issuing from a cleft at the foot of the cliff, and to this Kanu led the child after she had rested for a s.p.a.ce.

She had been for some time dreadfully thirsty, although hardly aware of the fact, and a drink of the cool water somewhat revived her. Then she removed her shoes and stockings, and placed her feet on a stone where the water splashed upon them. When Kanu placed a piece of bread in her hand she began mechanically to eat it.

The site was suitable as a camping-place. It was hemmed in by a loose-linked chain of great, irregular rocks, and, from the absence of paths in the neighbourhood, was evidently not often visited by human beings. Around were strewn soft cushions of moss and sheaves of waving gra.s.s swayed from high tussocks. Dead wood from the fallen branches of sugar-bushes lay about in considerable quant.i.ties. Kanu gathered a number of these together and lit a fire at the back of the largest of the rocks.

The weather was perfect. At the Cape, Spring performs her duties at the time which chronologically ought to be Winter. Thus, by the time her own proper season arrives, the flowers have already emerged to meet the mild, cloudless, steadfast sky, which, where the ground lies at any considerable elevation, scorches not by day nor chills by night. Thus, the unthinking cruelty of man was, in the case of these derelicts, in a measure compensated for by the careless kindness of the heavens.

"Kanu,--what shall we do?" asked Elsie at length, in a dejected voice.

"I do not know. It seems to be against the law down here to ask about the Governor," replied the Bushman, reminiscent of the possibility of the whip.

"Kanu,--have you seen the island where the prison is?"

"Yes,--it is far away across the water. If the water were land it would take half a day to walk to it."

After some further discussion it was finally agreed that next day Kanu was to leave Elsie on the mountain and continue his search for the Governor's residence alone. So at break of day the Bushman stole down the mountain side and continued his quest. At length he met one who vouchsafed a reply to his question. This was a blind Hottentot beggar whom he met being led by a little child to the street-corner where he was wont to ply his trade.

"The Governor," replied the beggar, with an air of superiority, "lives at Rondebosch, which is at the other side of the mountain, at this time of the year. I know this, because my niece, who is a washerwoman and washes for his coachman, told me so."

"Is it against the law to ask where the Governor lives?"

"No,--why should it be against the law?"

"Then one cannot be whipped for asking?"

"Whipped? no; what an idea. But there are many things a Hottentot can get whipped for, all the same."

"What kind of things?" asked Kanu, starting.

"Oh, plenty; stealing, for instance, or getting drunk, or being found in a garden at night. But who are you and where do you come from?"

Kanu was not prepared to answer on these points. However, he managed to elicit some further particulars,--for instance that if he walked along the main road he would pa.s.s the Governor's house on his right hand; that the house had big pillars of stone before it; that two soldiers with red coats and guns walked up and down in front of it night and day.

Kanu hurried away towards Rondebosch. Two things it was imperatively necessary to do,--to locate the Governor's house, and to get something for Elsie and himself to eat. He had left Elsie a small portion of bread,--hardly enough to serve for the scantiest of breakfasts. His own hunger was horrible. In spite of the tightening of his bark belt, which now nearly cut into his skin--the Bushman tribal expedient for minimising the pangs of famine--he was in agony. He pa.s.sed the fruit market and saw piles of luscious eatables that made his mouth water, and the odour of which made him almost faint with longing. All this plenty around him--whilst he and Elsie were starving. He hurried away, the wild animal in him prompting to a pounce upon the nearest table, to be followed by a bolt. He knew his legs were swift, but there were too many people about and he would be sure to be caught. Stealing, he remembered with a tingling of the shoulders, stood first in the old beggar's category of deeds for which one might get whipped.

A thought struck him,--he would first locate the Governor's house, then return and try, by following the course he had taken the first day, to rediscover the dwelling of the charitable woman who kept the little shop. But Rondebosch was on the other side of the mountain; would he be able to go there and back without food? Well, there was nothing else to be done. He would try it at all events.

But after he had walked a few hundred yards his hunger got the better of him and he turned back and began to search for the woman's dwelling. He reached the hotel with the wide stoep; from there he had no difficulty in reaching the store which the waiter had pointed out to him as the Governor's house. After this, however, he could no more unravel his way among the unfamiliar lines of exactly-similar houses, than a bird could find its way through a labyrinth of mole-burrows.

So the day drew to a close without Kanu obtaining any food. His own agony of hunger had given place, for the time being, to a sick feeling of weakness; it was Elsie's plight that now filled his thoughts. Food he must have, so he decided to steal the first edible thing he saw and trust to his swift running for escape. The whip was only a contingency, albeit a dreadful one,--but the hunger was a horrible actuality. Kanu made for the outskirts of the city and began to prowl about seeking for food to steal.

In the valley between Table Mountain and the Lion's Head were the dwellings of a number of coloured people of the very lowest cla.s.s. Most of the dwellings were miserable huts built of sacking and other rubbish, and standing in small clearings made in the thick, primaeval scrub. In the vicinity of some of these huts fowls were pecking about Kanu skirted the inhabited part of the valley, marking, with a view to possible contingencies, the huts near which fowls appeared to be most plentiful.

In a path near a hut which stood somewhat distant from any others, the matchless eye of the Bushman discerned a well-grown brood of chickens, evidently just released from parental tutelage. A swift glance showed him how he might, un.o.bserved, get between them and the hut. After worming his way through the scrub he emerged close to the unsuspicious poultry, into the midst of which he flung his stick, quick as lightning and with practised hand. Two chickens lay struggling on the ground.

The others fled homeward, with wild cacklings.

Within the s.p.a.ce of a couple of seconds Kanu had clutched the two unhappy fowls, wrung their necks and wrapped them up in his tattered kaross. Then he sprang aside, ran for a few yards and dropped like a stone. A man and a boy came rushing up the pathway and then commenced searching the thicket in every direction. Once the man pa.s.sed within a yard of the trembling Bushman, whose back began to tingle painfully.

However the danger pa.s.sed, so after a short time he crept along through the thicket to a safe distance, and then fled up to the mountain side to where he had left Elsie.

Bitter was the poor child's disappointment when she heard that the Governor did not live in Cape Town after all. However, Kanu was sanguine now of being able to locate the dwelling they had so long and so painfully sought for.

Kanu soon lit a fire and cooked the chickens, which proved tender and toothsome. The Bushman ate hardly anything but the entrails. He lied freely to Elsie in regard to the manner in which he had come by the birds, and waxed n.o.bly mendacious as to the amount of food which he pretended to have enjoyed during the day.

Next morning Elsie's feet were still so much inflamed that she could hardly put them to the ground. Kanu gave her the rest of the meat,-- which, as the chickens had been but small to begin with--came to very little. Then he bade her farewell, promising to be back as early in the afternoon as possible, and started on his way along the western flank of the mountain to Rondebosch.

He crossed the high neck which connects the eminence known as "the Devil's Peak" with Table Mountain. This name used then to cause great scandal to the Dutch colonists,--the term being an unconscious perversion by the English of the original name of "Duiven's," or "Dove's" Peak. Then he descended the almost perpendicular gorge to the thickets behind Groot Schuur, and soon found himself in the straggling village of Rondebosch.

It did not take him long to find the big house with the tall stone shafts before it, as described by the old beggar. His eye caught a glint of scarlet through the trees,--yes, there were the two soldiers walking up and down, armed with guns from the muzzles of which long bright knives projected.

However, it was best to make sure, so he took up a position fronting the house, but on the opposite side of the road. He saw people going in and coming out, some in scarlet and some in wonderfully shiny black clothes.

Several people pa.s.sed by, but they all looked too important for him to accost. At length a miserable-looking coloured woman hobbled by and he plucked up courage to address her:

"What are those two men walking up and down for?"

"Who are you that you don't know soldiers when you see them?"

"Are these soldiers;--and what are they doing here?"

"Taking care of the Governor, of course. That is his house."

At last. Well, he had found what he wanted, and there was nothing to do now but to tell Elsie, and bring her out here as soon as her feet were better.

But now that the excitement of the quest which had sustained him hitherto was over, a sudden agony of hunger gripped his vitals like a vice, and he felt that he must presently eat or die. Elsie, too! He had only left her a bite of cold chicken. He would go and seek for more prey. The whip was clean forgotten. Hunger--supremely agonising hunger--held him by the throat. He would go and seek for more fowls.

There must be other places on the outskirts of the city where they were obtainable. So Kanu started swiftly back along the main road to Cape Town, with all his faculties concentrated upon fowls and the stealing thereof.

It was early afternoon when he reached the outskirts of the city. The sun shone oppressively; there was hardly a soul to be seen.

He pa.s.sed a little shop, the proprietor of which,--a stout Malay, was apparently sleeping under a small awning hung over the front to protect the wares from the sun. A barrow, piled with cakes and other comestibles, stood at his side. They were queer, outlandish-looking eatables, such as Kanu had never seen before. The sight and the smell made him wolfish. He looked up and down the street; not a soul was in sight. He tightened his left arm against his side and let a fold of the ragged kaross hang over it like a bag. Then he shuffled his feet on the ground to test the slumber of the Malay, who gave no sign of observance.

Then he clutched as many of the cakes as his hands would hold, placed them in his improvised bag, and hurried away on tip-toe. Just afterwards a strong grasp compressed his neck and he was borne to the ground. When he managed to turn his head he saw the enraged countenance of the Malay glaring down upon him.

Kanu stood in the dock, looking like the terrified wild animal that he was, and pleaded "guilty" to stealing the cakes. He had spent the night in a foetid cell with a number of other delinquents who had been sc.u.mmed off the streets. The case attracted no particular attention, being one of a cla.s.s very common in, it may be supposed, every city.

The prisoner took some pains to explain to the bench how hungry--how _very_ hungry he had been, and how he had found it impossible to pa.s.s by the food after he had seen and smelt it.

The magistrate asked Kanu where he had come from and what he was doing in. Cape Town. The reply came in the form of a long, rambling statement which caused the minor officials to t.i.tter audibly, and the obvious untruthfulness of which caused His Worship, to frown with judicial severity. He had, come--the Bushman said--from a great distance, but from what exact locality he begged to be excused from saying. His business in Cape Town was "a big thing"; no less than an interview with the Governor. If Mynheer would only let him go to seek a companion who was waiting for him, and who must, by this time, be very hungry indeed;--and would let him have a piece of bread--just one little piece of bread no bigger than his hand, he would promise to return at once.--And if Mynheer would let him and his companion be taken before the Governor, Mynheer would soon see that the story he told was true.

Then he went on to say that he knew that he had done wrong in stealing the cakes, and consequently he deserved punishment, but Mynheer must please remember how hungry he had been, and how hungry his companion had been, and not give him the whip. He had heard that "brown people" were whipped in Cape Town if they stole, which was quite right if they stole when they were not hungry. He had never stolen before; he had only stolen this time because he could get nothing to eat, and had been unable to find the Governor. Only two things he begged of Mynheer: to let him go to his companion with a little piece of bread;--she had had nothing to eat since yesterday morning, and must be very hungry now, and frightened, for she had been alone all night. The other favour was that Mynheer might spare him the whip.

By this time everyone in court,--except His Worship, who had no sense of humour,--was almost convulsed with merriment at the quaint and guileful fictions of the Bushman. Where, wondered carelessly some of the more thoughtful, had this "_onbeschafte_" savage learnt to practise such artful hocus pocus. It was, they thought, an interesting object lesson, as proving the essential and hopelessly-mendacious depravity of the Bushman race.

His Worship was "down on" vagrancy in all its forms. Probably, being responsible for the good order of the city, he had to be. His official harangue in pa.s.sing sentence was not long, nor,--with the exception of the last paragraph,--interesting, even to Kanu. This last paragraph struck into the brain of the Bushman with a smart like that produced by one of the poisoned arrows of his own race, for it sentenced him to receive that whipping the dread of which had persistently haunted his waking and sleeping dreams. In addition he was to be imprisoned for a week--the greater portion of which had to be spent upon spare diet.

After this he had to leave the precincts of the city within twenty-four hours, on pain of a further application of the lash.

Kanu, the Bushman thief, received his stripes dumbly, as a wild animal should; but the bitter physical agony which he underwent when the cruel lash cut through the skin of his emaciated body expressed itself in writhings and contortions which, the prison warders said (and they spoke from an extended experience), were funnier than any they had ever seen before. The spare diet he did not so much mind, being well accustomed to that sort of thing.

After the shock of his punishment, which had dulled every other feeling for the time, had somewhat pa.s.sed away, Kanu realised that by this time Elsie must surely be dead, and he fell, accordingly, into bitter, if savage, tribulation. But soon he found himself thinking, in quite a civilised way, that it was better, after all, that the blind child should be free from her sufferings. Then Kanu turned his face to the wall of his cell and slept with inconsiderable waking intervals, throughout the rest of his period of durance.