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, rushing 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 passer-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 passed 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.