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.