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 passed 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.