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 ma.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 pet.i.tion was that G.o.d 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 Stepha.n.u.s 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt 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 l.u.s.tre 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 circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.sive 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 ma.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 gra.s.s, lay a pair of tattered _veldschoens_.