A sailing ship docked in Table Bay, and a very big man came ashore. He was six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and with the neck of a bull. And he looked such an important gentleman too. He had on a doublet of the finest silk, the buttons real rubies. The silver buckles on his shoes flashed in the sun. A long peacock’s feather was stuck in his hatband.
People crowded around, curious.
“ Is not that old Van Hunks?” called someone who had had a good look.
“ Where did he get all that stuff?” asked another.
Old Van Hunks did not say a word. But his face got redder and redder, and the veins on his neck swelled purple. Then the sailors started to unload. Trunks and chests, and more chests and trunks. Perhaps they contained treasures, perhaps rubbish. But he was certainly very concerned about them.
The people of Cape Town remembered all about him. In the olden days he had been the Governor’s huntsman. Then suddenly he had vanished without a trace. In those times he had been as poor as a pauper. And look at him now! How could it have happened?
People began to ask around, quietly in corners, and secretly in one of the taverns where the sailors drank. How had he done it? Such a scoundrel! Heads were shaken, fists were clenched, teeth were gnashed.
“ Sailing under the skull and cross-bones,” said one.
“ A real pirate!” said another.
“ Certainly no captain of an ordinary ship!” said a third.
“ A child of the Devil!” they all agreed. “May the Devil take him!”
But Captain Van Hunks did not take any notice of all this talk. He went of to the Windberg, to the little house that had waited for him all the years. In those days the Cape was still young, but the Captain had grown old. He had come to spend his last days. there.
So he lived alone in his house, with one or two slaves to look after his cattle, and one for his garden. When the weather was bad, he sat on the stoep with his calabash pipe in his mouth, and a little barrel of arrack beside him. But on fine days he climbed up the Windberg, and there he sat smoking, drinking and looking far across the bay. He loved to watch the white sails of the ships filling in the wind as they came in to dock. But he dared not go near the harbour. There were too many sailors who might know him and who might prove dangerous.
Late one afternoon the old captain sat there as usual, when suddenly he became aware of a stranger beside him. He had not seen him come, nor did he know who he was. But the man clearly knew him, because he greeted him as a friend, “Good afternoon, Captain Van Hunks.”
Good day,” said Van Hunks curtly, and he pulled on his pipe, but the stranger was not put off by his bad manners.
“ A pleasant place to sit,” said the stranger, and he sat down himself.
“ Yes,” said the captain.
“ A pleasant place to smoke,” the stranger went on, and he took out his own pipe.
“ Yes, yes!” said Captain Van Hunks.
A queer figure this stranger was. Long and thin, and dressed all in black, he was wearing a very tall tophat. There was not a trace of colour in his hollow cheeks, and black shadows lurked in his dark eyes.
He lit up. With the smoking, they came to talking, and from talking they went to boasting.
“ I’m the heaviest smoker!”
“ No, I am!”
“ I!”
“ Come, let us see then, who is, “ said the stranger, and he emptied his tobacco-pouch onto a flat stone.
“ Yes, come,” said the captain and turned his pouch out too.
“ We must smoke for a prize,” the stranger went on. “For your eternal soul, if I win. And I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth if I lose.”
“ I lost my soul a long time ago already,” growled the old sea captain. “And I’ve seen enough of earthly kingdoms. They’re just trouble the livelong day. No, we’ll smoke for the joy of it – to see who is the greatest smoker.”
The tobacco was divided equally. Each had a small mountain in front of him, for they both had capacious pouches.
They knocked their pipes out. The tinder-boxes lay ready.
Go!
Ram it down. Light up. Take a good pull. The old captain smoked with great enjoyment. So did the stranger.
They smoked till the sun set and darkness came. They smoked till the cocks crew. In between the old captain told stories of pirates. The stranger listened, but did not speak.
Later on the smoke hung in a thick cloud over the slopes of the Windberg. Driven by the wind, it spread over the flat top of Table Mountain next to them.
“ Look at that!” a French ship’s captain, who had just arrived in the bay, called out. “The mountain is wearing a powdered wig.”
“ No,” said the people of Cape Town, “it’s a tablecloth for the Table Mountain.”
They smoked the whole day long. They smoked the following night. The cloud cloth grew ever thicker.
On the third day the stranger began to turn yellow. By midday his face was grass-green. That whole day the captain was the only one who spoke. Nothing seemed to bother him. His face was slightly redder than usual, but that was all.
“ No, no, no!” the stranger called out suddenly, and he fell over flat on his back. The fall pushed his tophat off, and two little horns peeped out.
“ Oh yes!” said Captain Van Hunks when he saw them. “So you were the Devil all the time.”
“ Yes,” said the Devil, and he got up slowly, “I’ve come to fetch you.”
“ But I won!” old Captain Van Hunks protested.
The only answer was a flash of lightening and a clap of thunder. The whole world smelt of sulphur. When the blue fumes cleared, there was a great burnt patch on the mountain to mark the place where old Van Hunks and the Devil had sat. But there was no sign of the two of them.
Two of the old captain’s slaves who had gone to find their master, arrived just in time to see what happened. They fled without once looking back, and their story quickly spread through the whole town.
But as the years passed, the story grew. Old Van Hunks was such a pigheaded fellow, people said, that even the Devil could not get the better of him. He kept on nagging the Devil that he had been tricked by him, and that he had won the smoking competition. When things got too bad, the Devil brought him back to the Windberg to smoke again, but he could never the better of old Van Hunks. With pipe and tobacco he was the champion.
The Cape has changed since that first competition. Sailing ships have gone. Smoking monsters and sleek race-hounds of the seven seas use the new harbour now. Captain Van Hunks’ little house has turned to dust, and his mountain is now called Devil’s Peak.
The people he knew, are all dead long ago. New generations have come and gone. Old Van Hunks is unknown now. Only the Devil has his acquaintances in every age. Nowadays, when Captain Van Hunks and the Devil light their pipes and send the white clouds over the mountain, people say, “Look, Table Mountain has its tablecloth on again. The south-easter will blow.” Then they pull their doors shut and close the windows fast, not knowing that, if you screw up your eyes, you can see the two old smokers’ pipes glowing high against the side of Devil’s Peak.
