Part 7 (2/2)

The woman stole back into the room on tip-toe, and gazed at the sleeping child. Made paler by sleep the face of Elsie looked like that of a corpse. Her hair lay in a glowing, tangled ma.s.s on the pillow; the gazer picked up one of the tresses and examined it with reverent wonder.

Then she left the room, closed the door softly, shut up the shop and went to her kitchen for the purpose of concocting some strong broth.

It was late when Elsie woke. Her hostess was sitting at the bedside.

She soothed the child, gave her a drink of warm broth and made her lie down again. Then the woman crept into the bed, and the two slumbered together until morning. Kanu had been accommodated with a sack in the kitchen and a supper of fruit which had become unsaleable stock.

At early dawn the woman arose, leaving Elsie still sleeping. She went to the kitchen and lit a large fire, over which she placed a capacious pot of water. Then she fetched a wooden tub and laid it noiselessly in the bedroom. When Elsie awoke she found a good cup of coffee and a biscuit ready for her. These she consumed with a good appet.i.te.

It was in preparing her for the bath that the woman found out that the child was blind. Then her pity overcame her so that she sobbed aloud.

She had lost her own only child, a girl of about Elsie's age, a few years previously. After Elsie had bathed, the woman went to a cupboard and fetched out what was her greatest treasure,--the clothes of her dead child, which she had folded carefully away interspersed with aromatic herbs to keep out the moth. With the best of the garments she clothed her little guest. Then, after dressing the lacerated feet, she wrapped them in clean strips of linen, and put shoes and stockings which would have been much too large under other circ.u.mstances, upon them. This done, she combed out the child's hair, marvelling audibly at its length and richness.

Elsie could no longer resist the importunities of her kind friend, so she told her story,--how her dearly-loved father was in prison, suffering for a crime he had never committed; how she and Kanu were the only ones who could establish his innocence; how they had run away and wandered thither over mountain and desert plain for the purpose of seeing the great English Governor and obtaining justice.

The woman did not know what to make of it. The places named were strange to her; the whole thing seemed uncanny. The extraordinary tale of the shooting, the child's blindness,--her wonderful tresses,--the savage, wild-animal look of her diminutive protector,--his language--an outlandish click-mingled corruption of an already corrupt patois--it was quite beyond the good soul's imaginative range, so she gave up the problem with a sigh and redoubled her tenderness to Elsie.

After breakfast Elsie and Kanu again wandered forth on their pathetic quest. The woman tried her very best to induce Elsie to remain, and let Kanu endeavour to locate the Governor's dwelling as a preliminary measure. She herself could give no information on the subject, nor could any of the neighbours of whom she enquired. She made Elsie promise to return if her search proved unsuccessful.

This woman was a lonely soul, with nothing to love, and Elsie had made a way straight to her heart. She exultingly made up her mind to adopt the child, knowing that the latter, even if she succeeded in finding the Governor's house, would never be let in by the attendants. Therefore she made sure that her guests would return in the evening. All day long she could think of nothing but Elsie, the silky richness of whose yellow hair seemed to adhere to her dusky fingers and to lie like chrysm upon her charitable palm.

That day the little shop and dwelling was swept and garnished as it had never been since the death of the woman's own child. Clean sheets were placed upon the bed and a new and more wonderful patchwork quilt was unearthed from the depths of the press and spread out in all its glory.

As evening drew near she cooked a dainty little supper; the child would surely return hungry after her walk.

The hour at which the visitors had arrived on the previous day drew on.

Supper was ready,--done to a turn,--and the woman stood before her doorway, anxiously scanning the street, up and down. The neighbourhood had grown loud with the strident tones of squalid children, rus.h.i.+ng about in bands at uncouth games as was their wont. The darkness came but there was no sign of the missing guests.

The night drew on and the noises died down in the streets, until almost utter silence reigned. When midnight struck in the spire of the distant church, the disappointed woman sadly closed the door. She sat in the shop for a while longer, her ear alert for the footstep her heart yearned for. Then she put out the light and went weeping to bed, leaving the untasted supper on the table.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE SORROWS OF KANU.

The two waifs resumed their search for the Governor's dwelling with feelings very different from those which had inspired them at the beginning. Throughout the long, blistering morning they wandered about the streets, timidly accosting any occasional pa.s.ser-by whose appearance suggested possibilities of kindness, but no one would take their enquiries seriously. Some sent them purposely wrong, as one has seen unfeeling persons send an ignorant native round a village on April Fool's Day, carrying a paper with the legend: ”Send the Fool on.” Most of the people they spoke to smiled and pa.s.sed on; more than once Kanu had to spring to one side to avoid a blow. He, poor savage, had a continual dread of the whip hanging over his shuddering shoulders, whilst cold and deepening despair lay like lead upon his blind companion's breast.

And, truly, the appearance of the two was sufficiently _bizarre_ and startling. Kanu, clad in a few tattered skins,--gaunt with famine, his body and limbs scarred by brambles and his quaking soul glaring out through his eyes,--his questions clothed in badly-broken Dutch and his whole manner that of a wild beast at bay,--why, such a being had never been seen in the city of Cape Town before.

Of the two, however, the blind girl was the more alarming object than the Bushman, who made for her a most effective foil. Her face was pale with the hue born of that fatigue and starvation against which her frail body had been braced by a great resolve and a transcendent hope,--but staring through this pallor was the bitter agony of disappointment and fear. Her eyes, grown large and hollow, glowed deeply under the ma.s.ses of her hair. Her face had taken on a terrible beauty that seemed to radiate calamity and despair.

Thus pa.s.sed this day of tribulation, but it was late in the afternoon before the full measure of their sufferings was attained. Elsie had sunk exhausted on the pavement near an almost deserted street-corner.

Suddenly a noise of shouting was heard, and within a few seconds the terrified waifs found themselves surrounded by a swarm of tormenting street boys. Elsie sprang to her feet and clasped her hands around her companion's sinewy arm. They stood close to the wall, and the boys formed a half-circle before them. The crowd seemed ever to increase.

Although molested, neither was actually hurt. Now and then some bolder urchin would jostle them and once or twice Elsie's hair was tugged at.

But it seemed as though the touch of the rich fibre had some strange effect; each one who laid hands on it drew away at once, and slunk to the outskirts of the crowd, as though ashamed.

They were rescued from this terrible predicament by three soldiers who were evidently taking a stroll. These, seeing what was going on, laid into the persecutors with their canes to such effect that the street was soon clear. Kanu spoke to his rescuers, asking the old question, but they could not understand his language, and pa.s.sed on.

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