For Ruth grew lovelier as the days went on. She was as lovely in the spirit as in the flesh. Her moods were many and always striking. She was never violent when angry: she became as calm and baffling as the sea in doldrums. She never grew angry for anything her husband did: such anger as came to her was directed against the lazy, incompetent servant who was always snooping about in the inner temple—Spurlock's study.
She formed a habit which embarrassed Spurlock greatly, but at first he dared not complain. She would come and sit cross-legged just beyond the bamboo curtain and silently watch him at work. One night she apparently fell asleep. He could not permit her to remain in that position. So, very carefully, he raised her in his arms and carried her to her bed. The moment he was out in the hall, Ruth sat up hugging and rocking her body in delight. This charming episode was repeated three times. Then he sensed the trap.
"Ruth, you must not come and sit on the threshold. I can't concentrate on my work. It doesn't annoy me; it only disturbs me. I can't help looking at you frequently. You don't want me to spoil the story, do you?"
"No. But it's so wonderful to watch you! Whenever you have written something beautiful, your face shows it."
"I know; but …"
"And sometimes you say out loud: 'That's great stuff!' I never make any sound."
"But it is the sight of you!"
"All right, Hoddy. I promise not to do it again." She rose. "Good night."
He stared at the agitated curtain; and slowly his chin sank until it touched his chest. He had hurt her. But the recollection of the warm pliant body in his arms …!
"I am a thief!" he whispered. He had only to recall this fact (which he did in each crisis) to erect a barrier she could not go around or over.
Sometimes it seemed to him that he was an impostor: that Ruth believed him to be one Howard Spurlock, when he was only masquerading as Spurlock. If ever the denouement came—if ever the Hand reached him—Ruth would then understand why he had rebuffed all her tender advances. The law would accord her all her previous rights: she would return to the exact status out of which in his madness he had taken her. She might even forgive him.
He thanked God for this talent of his. He could lose himself for hours at a time. Whatever he wrote he was: he became this or that character, he suffered or prospered equally. He was the beachcomber, or the old sailor with the black pearl (Ruth's tales), or the wastrel musician McClintock had described to him. There was a fourth story; but he never told either Ruth or McClintock about this. He called it "The Man Who Could Not Go Home." Himself. He did not write this with lead but with his heart's blood.
By the middle of July he was in full health. In the old days he had been something of an athlete—a runner, an oarsman, and a crack at tennis. The morning swims in the lagoon had thickened the red corpuscle. For all the enervating heat, he applied himself vigorously to his tasks.
Late in July he finished the fourth story. This time there wasn't any doubt. He had done it. These were yarns! As he was about to slip the manuscripts into the envelope, something caught his eye: by Howard Spurlock. Entranced, he stared at the name. Suddenly he understood what had happened. A wrathful God was watching him. Howard Spurlock. The honey on his tongue turned to ashes. To write under a pseudonym!—to be forced to disown his children! He could not write under his own name, enjoy the fruits of fame should these tales prove successful.
Here was a thundering blow. All his dreams shattered in an instant. What is the supreme idea in the heart and mind of youth? To win fame and fortune: and particularly to enjoy them. Spurlock slumped in his chair, weak and empty. This was the bitterest hour he had ever known. From thoughts of fame to thoughts of mere bread and butter! It seemed to Spurlock that he had tumbled off the edge of Somewhere into the abyss of Nowhere.
At length, when he saw no escape from the inevitable, he took the four title pages from the manuscripts and typed new ones, substituting Taber for Spurlock. A vast indifference settled down upon him. He did not care whether the stories were accepted or not. He was so depressed and disheartened that he did not then believe he would ever write again.
Both Ruth and McClintock came down to the launch to wish him God-speed and good luck. Ruth hugged the envelope and McClintock, with the end of a burnt match, drew a cabalistic sign. Through it all Spurlock maintained a gaiety which deceived them completely. But his treasured dream lay shattered at his feet.
And yet—such is the buoyancy of youth—within a fortnight he began his first novel, pretending to himself that it was on Ruth's account. To be alone with her, in idleness, was an intolerable thought.
* * * * *
Coconuts grew perpetually. There will often be six growths in a single palm. So proas loaded with nuts were always landing on the beach. The Tigress went prowling for nut, too. Once, both Ruth and Spurlock accompanied McClintock far south, to an island of blacks; and Spurlock had his first experience with the coconut dance and the booming of wooden tom-toms.
At first Spurlock tasted coconut in his eggs, in what meat he ate; it permeated everything, taste and smell. For a long time even the strong pipe tobacco (with which McClintock supplied him) possessed a coconut flavour. Then, mysteriously, he no longer smelled or tasted it.
On the day he carried the manuscript to Copeley's he brought back a packet of letters, magazines, and newspapers. McClintock never threw away any advertising matter; in fact, he openly courted pamphlets; and they came from automobile dealers and great mail-order houses, from haberdashers and tailors and manufacturers of hair-tonics, razors, gloves, shoes, open plumbing. In this way (he informed Spurlock) he kept posted on what was going on in the strictly commercial world. "Besides, lad, even an advertisement of a cough-drop is something to read." So there was always plenty of mail.
Among the commercial enticements McClintock found a real letter. In privacy he read and reread it a dozen times, and eventually destroyed it by fire. It was, in his opinion, the most astonishing letter he had ever read. He hated to destroy it; but that was the obligation imposed; and he was an honourable man.
Not since she had discovered it had Ruth touched or opened the mission Bible; but to-night (the same upon which the wonderful manuscripts started on their long and circuitous voyage to America) she was inexplicably drawn to it. In all these weeks she had not once knelt to pray. Why should she? she asked rebelliously. God had never answered any of her prayers. But this time she wanted nothing for herself: she wanted something for Hoddy—success. So, not exactly hopefully but earnestly, she returned to the feet of God. She did not open the Bible but laid it on the edge of the bed, knelt and rested her forehead upon the worn leather cover.
It was not a long prayer. She said it audibly, having learned long since that an audible prayer was a concentrated one. And yet, at the end of this prayer a subconscious thought broke through to consciousness. "And someday let him care for me!"
She sprang up, alarmed. This unexpected interpolation might spoil the efficacy of all that had gone before. She hadn't meant to ask anything for herself. Her stifled misery had betrayed her. She had been fighting down this thought for days: that Hoddy did not care, that he did not love her, that he had mistaken a vagary of the mind for a substance, and now regretted what he had done—married a girl who was not his equal in anything. The agony on the sands now ceased to puzzle her.
All her tender lures, inherent and acquired, had shattered themselves futilely against the reserve he had set between them. Why had he offered her that kiss on board The Tigress? Perhaps that had been his hour of disenchantment. She hadn't measured up; she had been stupid; she hadn't known how to make love.
Loneliness. Here was an appalling fact: all her previous loneliness had been trifling beside that which now encompassed her and would for years to come.
If only sometimes he would grow angry at her, impatient! But his tender courtesy was unfailing; and under this would be the abiding bitterness of having mistaken gratitude for love. Very well. She would meet him upon this ground: he should never be given the slightest hint that she was unhappy.
She still had her letter of credit. She could run away from him, if she wished, as she had run away from her father; she could carry out the original adventure. But the cases were not identical. Her father—man of rock—had never needed her, whereas Hoddy, even if he did not love her, would always be needing her.
Love stories!… A sob rushed into her throat, and to smother it she buried her face in a pillow.
Spurlock, filled with self-mockery, sat in a chair on the west veranda. The chair had extension arms over which a man might comfortably dangle his legs. For awhile he watched the revolving light on Copeley's. Occasionally he relit his pipe. Once he chuckled aloud. Certain phases of irony always caused him to chuckle audibly. Every one of those four stories would be accepted. He knew it absolutely, as if he had the check in his hand. Why? Because Howard Spurlock the author dared not risk the liberty of Howard Spurlock the malefactor; because there were still some dregs in this cup of irony. For what could be more ironical than for Howard Spurlock to see himself grow famous under the name of Taber? The ambrosia of which he had so happily dreamt!—and this gall and wormwood! He stood up and rapped his pipe on the rail.
"All right," he said. "Whatever you say—you, behind those stars there, if you are a God. We Spurlocks take our medicine, standing. Pile it on! But if you can hear the voice of the mote, the speck, don't let her suffer for anything I've done. Be a sport, and pile it all on me!"
He went to bed.
There is something in prayer; not that there may be any noticeable result, any definite answer; but no human being can offer an honest prayer to God without gaining immeasurably in courage, in fortitude, in resignation, and that alone is worth the effort.
On the morrow Spurlock (who was unaware that he had offered a prayer) let down the bars to his reserve. He became really companionable, discussed the new story he had in mind, and asked some questions about colour. Ruth, having decided a course for herself—that of renunciation—and having the strength to keep it, met these advances in precisely the mood they were offered. So these two young philosophers got along very well that day; and the succeeding days.
She taught him all the lore she had; about bird-life and tree-life and the changing mysteries of the sea. She taught him how to sail a proa, how to hack open a milk-coconut, how to relish bamboo sprouts. Eventually this comradeship (slightly resented by Rollo) reached a point where he could call out from the study: "Hey, Ruth!—come and tell me what you think of this."
Her attitude now entirely sisterly, he ceased to be afraid of her; there was never anything in her eyes (so far as he could see) but friendly interest in all he said or did. And yet, often when alone, he wondered: had McClintock been wrong, or had she ceased to care in that way? The possibility that she no longer cared should have filled him with unalloyed happiness, whereas it depressed him, cut the natural vanity of youth into shreds and tatters. Yesterday this glorious creature had loved him; to-day she was only friendly. No more did she offer her forehead for the good-night kiss. And instead of accepting the situation gratefully, he felt vaguely hurt!
One evening in September a proa rasped in upon the beach. It brought no coconut. There stepped forth a tall brown man. He remained standing by the stem of the proa, his glance roving investigatingly. He wore a battered sun-helmet, a loin-cloth and a pair of dilapidated canvas shoes. At length he proceeded toward McClintock's bungalow, drawn by the lights and the sound of music.
Sure of foot, noiseless, he made the veranda and paused at the side of one of the screened windows. By and by he ventured to peer into this window. He saw three people: a young man at the piano, an elderly man smoking in a corner, and a young woman reclining in a chair, her eyes closed. The watcher's intake of breath was sibilant.
It was she! The Dawn Pearl!
He vaulted the veranda rail, careless now whether or not he was heard, and ran down to the beach. He gave an order, the proa was floated and the sail run up. In a moment the brisk evening breeze caught the lank canvas and bellied it taut. The proa bore away to the northwest out of which it had come.
James Boyle O'Higgins knew little or nothing of the South Seas, but he knew human beings, all colours. His deduction was correct that the beauty of Ruth Enschede could not remain hidden long even on a forgotten isle.
CHAPTER XXIV
Spurlock's novel was a tale of regeneration. For a long time to come that would naturally be the theme of any story he undertook to write. After he was gone in the morning, Ruth would steal into the study and hurriedly read what he had written the previous night. She never questioned the motives of the characters; she had neither the ability nor the conceit for that; but she could and often did correct his lapses in colour. She never touched the manuscript with pencil, but jotted down her notes on slips of paper and left them where he might easily find them.
She marvelled at his apparent imperviousness to the heat. He worked afternoons, when everybody else went to sleep; he worked at night under a heat-giving light, with insects buzzing and dropping about, with a blue haze of tobacco smoke that tried to get out and could not. With his arms bare, the neckband of his shirt tucked in, he laboured. Frequently he would take up a box of talc and send a shower down his back, or fill his palms with the powder and rub his face and arms and hands. He kept at it even on those nights when the monsoon began to break with heavy storms and he had to weight down with stones everything on his table. Soot was everywhere, for the lamp would not stay trimmed in the gale. But he wrote on.
As the novel grew Ruth was astonished to see herself enter and dominate it: sometimes as she actually was, with all her dreams reviewed—as if he had caught her talking in her sleep. It frightened her to behold her heart and mind thus laid bare; but the chapter following would reassure her. Here would be a woman perfectly unrecognizable, strong, ruthless but just.
This heroine ruled an island which (in the '80s) was rich with shell—pearl-shell; and she fought pearl thievers and marauding beachcombers, fought them with weapons and with woman's guile. No man knew whence she had come nor why. That there would eventually be a lover Ruth knew; and she waited his appearance upon the scene, waited with an impatience which was both personal and literary. If the creator drew a hero anything like himself, she would accept it as a sign that he did care a little.
Ruth did not resent the use of her mind and body in this tale of adventure. She gloried in it: he needed her. When the hero finally did appear, Ruth became filled with gentle self-mockery. He was no Hoddy, but a tremendous man, with hairy arms and bearded face and drink-shattered intellect. Day by day she followed the spiritual and physical contest between this man and woman. One day a pall of blackness encompassed the sick mind of the giant; and when he came to his senses, they properly functioned: and he saw his wife by his bedside!
An astonishing idea entered Ruth's head one day—when the novel was complete in the rough—an astonishing idea because it had not developed long ago. A thing which had mystified her since childhood, a smouldering wonder why it should be, and until now she had never felt the urge to investigate. She tucked the mission Bible under her arm, and crooking a finger at Rollo, went forth to the west beach where the sou'-west surge piled up muddily, burdened with broken spars, crates, boxes, and weeds. During the wet monsoon the west beach was always littered. Where the stuff came from was always a mystery.
The Enschede Bible—the one out of which she read—had been strangely mutilated. Sections and pages had been pasted together, and all through both Testaments a word had been blotted out. The open books she knew by heart; aye, they had been ground into her, morning and night. One of her duties, after she had been taught to read, had been to read aloud after breakfast and before going to bed. The same old lines and verses, over and over, until there had come times when shrieking would have relieved her. How she had hated it!… All these mumblings which were never explained, which carried no more sense to her brain than they would have carried to Old Morgan's swearing parrot. Like the parrot, she could memorize the lines, but she could not understand them. Never had her father explained. "Read the first chapter of Job"; beyond that, nothing. Whenever she came upon the obliterated word and paused, her father would say: "Faith. Go on." So, after a time, encountering the blot, she herself would supply the word Faith. But was it Faith? That is what she was this day going to find out.
She closed her eyes more vividly to recall some line which had carried the blot. And so she came upon the word Love. Blotted out—Love! With infinite care, through nearly a thousand pages, her father had obliterated the word Love. Why? Love was a word of God's, and yet her father had denied it—denied it to the Book, denied it to his own flesh and blood. Why? He could preach the Word and deny Love!—tame the savage heart, succour broken white men!—pray with his face strained with religious fervour! The idea made her dizzy because it was so inexplicable. She could accord her father with one grace: he was not in any manner a hypocrite. Tender with the sick, firm with the strong, fearless, with a body that had the resistance of iron, there was nothing of the hypocrite in him.
She recalled him. A gaunt, powerful man: no feature of his face decided, and yet for all that it had the significance of a countenance hewn out of rock. Never had he corrected her with hand or whip, the ring in his voice had always been sufficient to cower her. But never had the hand touched her with a father's caress; never had he taken her into his arms; never had he kissed her. She had never been "My child" or "My dear"; always her name—Ruth.
Love, obliterated, annihilated; out of his heart and out of his Bible. Why? Here was a curtain indeed. No matter. It was ended. She herself had cut the slender tie that had bound them. Ah, but she could remember; and many things there were that she would never forgive. Sometimes—a lonely forlorn child—she had gone to him and put her arms around his neck. Stonily he had disengaged himself. "I forbid you to do that." She had brought home a puppy one day. He had taken it back. He destroyed her clumsily made dolls whenever he found them.
Once she had asked him: "Are you my father?"
He had answered: "I am."
She had no reason to doubt him. Her father, her own father! She remembered now a verse from the Psalms her father had always been quoting; but now she recited it with perfect understanding.
How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
She came upon the Song of Songs—which had been pasted down in the Enschede Bible—the burning litany of love; and from time to time she intoned some verse of tender lyric beauty. There was one verse that haunted and mocked her.
Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.
Here was Ruth Enschede—sick of love! Love—something the world would always keep hidden from her, at least human love. All she had found was the love of this dog. She threw her arms around Rollo's neck and laid her cheek upon the flea-bitten head.
"Oh, Rollo, there are so many things I don't know! But you love me, don't you?"
Rollo wagged his stump violently and tried to lick her face. He understood. When she released him he ran down the beach for a stick which he fetched and laid at her feet. But she was staring seaward and did not notice the offering.
* * * * *
October. The skies became brilliant; the dry monsoon was setting in. Then came the great day. It was at lunch when McClintock announced that in the mail-pouch he had found a letter addressed to Howard Taber, care of Donald McClintock and so-forth.
Spurlock grew cold. All that confidence, born of irony, disappeared; and fear laid hold of him. The envelope might contain only a request as to what he wanted done with the manuscripts. In mailing the tales he had not enclosed return postage or the equivalent in money.
"So you're writing under a nom de plume, eh?" said McClintock, holding out the letter.
"You open it, Ruth. I'm in a funk," Spurlock confessed.
McClintock laughed as he gave the letter to Ruth. She, having all the confidence in the world, ripped off an end and drew out the contents—a letter and a check. What the editor had to say none of the three cared just then. Spurlock snatched the check out of Ruth's hands and ran to the window.
"A thousand dollars in British pounds!… A thousand dollars for four short stories!" The tan on Spurlock's face lightened. He was profoundly stirred. He turned to Ruth and McClintock. "You two … both of you! But for you I couldn't have done it. If only you knew what this means to me!"
"We do, lad," replied McClintock, gravely. The youth of them! And what was he going to do when they left his island? What would Donald McClintock be doing with himself, when youth left the island, never more to return?
Ruth was thrilling with joy. Every drop of blood in her body glowed and expanded. To go to Hoddy, to smother him with kisses and embraces in this hour of triumph! To save herself from committing the act—the thought of which was positive hypnotism—she began the native dance. Spurlock (himself verging upon the hysterical) welcomed the diversion. He seized a tray, squatted on the floor, and imitated the tom-tom. It was a mad half-hour.
"Well, lad, supposing you read what the editor has to say?" was
McClintock's suggestion, when the frolic was over.
"You read it, Ruth. You're luck."
"Aye!" was McClintock's inaudible affirmative. Luck. The boy would never know just how lucky he was. Ruth read:
DEAR SIR:
"We are delighted to accept these four stories, particularly 'The Man Who Could Not Go Home.' We shall be pleased to see more of your work.
"'The Man Who Could Not Go Home.' Why," said Ruth, "you did not read that to us."
"Wanted to see if I could turn out one all on my own," replied Spurlock, looking at McClintock, who nodded slightly. "It was the story of a man, so to speak, who had left his vitals in his native land and wandered strange paths emptily. But never mind that. Come along home, Ruth. I'm burning to get to work."
After all those former bitter failures, this cup was sweet, even if there was the flavour of irony. At least, he would always be able to take care of Ruth. The Dawn Pearl; how well they had named her! The pearl without price—his and not his!
He took her arm and drew it under his; and together they went down the veranda steps. Ruth's arm trembled and her step faltered, but he was too far away in thought to be observant. He saw rifts in clouds—sunshine. The future was not so black. All the money he earned—serving McClintock and the muse—could be laid away. Then, in a few years, he and Ruth might fare forth in comfort and security. After five or six years it would not be difficult to hide in Italy or in France. No; the future was not so dark; there was a bit of dawn visible. If this success continued, it would be easy to assume the name of Taber. Ruth could not very well object, since an air of distinction would go with Taber.
Suddenly he felt Ruth swing violently away from him, and he wheeled to learn the cause.
He beheld a tall gaunt man, his brown face corrugated like a winter's road, grim, stony. His gangling body was clothed in rusty twill trousers and a long black seersucker coat, buttoned to the throat, around which ran a collar which would have marked him the world over as a man of the Word. His hand rested heavily and cruelly upon Ruth's shoulder.
"So, wanton, I have found you!"
"Wanton! Why, you infernal liar!" cried Spurlock, striking at the arm. But the free arm of the stranger hit him a flail-like blow on the chest and sent him sprawling into the yielding sand. Berserker, Spurlock rose, head down, and charged.
"Hoddy, Hoddy!… No, no! This is my father!" warned Ruth.
Spurlock halted in his tracks. "But what does he mean by calling you a wanton?—you, my wife?"
Enschede's hand slipped from his daughter's shoulder. The iron slipped from his face, leaving it blank with astonishment. "Your wife?"
"His lawful wife," said Ruth, with fine dignity.
For a moment none of them stirred; then slowly Enschede turned away. To Spurlock's observing eye, Enschede's wrinkles multiplied and the folds in his clothes. The young man's imagination suddenly pictured the man as a rock, loosed from its ancient bed, crumbling as it fell. But why did he turn away?
"Wait!" Ruth called to her father.
The recollection of all her unhappiness, the loveless years, the unending loneliness, the injustice of it, rolled up to her lips in verbal lava. It is not well that a daughter should talk to her father as Ruth talked to hers that day.
The father, granite; the daughter, fire: Spurlock saw the one and heard the other, his amazement indescribable. Never before had he seen a man like Enschede nor heard a voice like Ruth's. But as the mystery which surrounded Ruth fell away that which enveloped her father thickened.
"I used to cry myself to sleep, Hoddy, I was so forlorn and lonely. He heard me; but he never came in to ask what was the matter. For fifteen years!—so long as I can remember! All I wanted was a little love, a caress now and then. But I waited in vain. So I ran away, blindly, knowing nothing of the world outside. Youth! You denied me even that," said Ruth, her glance now flashing to her father. "Spring!—I never knew any. I dared not sing, I dared not laugh, except when you went away. What little happiness I had I was forced to steal. I am glad you found me. I am out of your life forever, never having been in it. Did you break my mother's heart as you tried to break mine? I am no longer accountable to you for anything. Wanton! Had I been one, even God would have forgiven me, understanding. Some day I may forgive you; but not now. No, no! Not now!"
Ruth turned abruptly and walked toward the bungalow, mounted the veranda steps, and vanished within. Without a word, without a sign, Enschede started toward the beach, where his proa waited.
For a time Spurlock did not move. This incredible scene robbed him of the sense of locomotion. But his glance roved, to the door through which Ruth had gone, to Enschede's drooping back. Unexpectedly he found himself speeding toward the father.
"Enschede!" he called.
Enschede halted. "Well?" he said, as Spurlock reached his side.
"Are you a human being, to leave her thus?"
"It is better so. You heard her. What she said is true."
"But why? In the name of God, why? Your flesh and blood! Have you never loved anything?"
"Are you indeed my daughter's lawful husband?" Enschede countered.
"I am. You will find the proof in McClintock's safe. You called her a wanton!"
"Because I had every reason to believe she was one. There was every indication that she fled the island in company with a dissolute rogue." Still the voice was without emotion; calm, colourless.
Fired with wrath, Spurlock recounted the Canton episode. "She travelled alone; and she is the purest woman God ever permitted to inhabit the earth. What!—you know so little of that child? She ran away from you. Somebody tricked you back yonder—baited you for spite. She ran away from you; and now I can easily understand why. What sort of a human being are you, anyhow?"
Enschede gazed seaward. When he faced Spurlock, the granite was cracked and rived; never had Spurlock seen such dumb agony in human eyes. "What shall I say? Shall I tell you, or shall I leave you in the dark—as I must always leave her? What shall I say except that I am accursed of men? Yes; I have loved something—her mother. Not wisely but too well. I loved her beyond anything in heaven or on earth—to idolatry. God is a jealous God, and He turned upon me relentlessly. I had consecrated my life to His Work; and I took the primrose path."
"But a man may love his wife!" cried Spurlock, utterly bewildered.
"Not as I loved mine. So, one day, because God was wroth, her mother ran away with a blackguard, and died in the gutter, miserably. Perhaps I've been mad all these years; I don't know. Perhaps I am still mad. But I vowed that Ruth should never suffer the way I did—and do. For I still love her mother. So I undertook to protect her by keeping love out of her life, by crushing it whenever it appeared, obliterating it. I made it a point to bring beachcombers to the house to fill her with horror of mankind. I never let her read stories, or have pets, dolls. Anything that might stir the sense of love And God has mocked me through it all."
"Man, in God's name, come with me and tell her this!" urged
Spurlock.
"It is too late. Besides, I would tear out my tongue rather than let it speak her mother's infamy. To tell Ruth anything, it would be necessary to tell her everything; and I cannot and you must not. She was always asking questions about her mother and supplying the answers. So she built a shrine. Always her prayers ended—'And may my beautiful mother guide me!' No. It is better as it is. She is no longer mine; she is yours."
"What a mistake!"
"Yes. But you—you have a good face. Be kind to her. Whenever you grow impatient with her, remember the folly of her father. I can now give myself to God utterly; no human emotion will ever be shuttling in between."
"And all the time you loved her?"—appalled.
"Perhaps."
Enschede stepped into the proa, and the natives shoved off. Spurlock remained where he was until the sail became an infinitesimal speck in the distance. His throat filled; he wanted to weep. For yonder went the loneliest man in all God's unhappy world.
CHAPTER XXV
Spurlock pushed back his helmet and sat down in the white sand, buckling his knees and folding his arms around them—pondering. Was he really awake? The arrival and departure of this strange father lacked the essential human touch to make it real. Without a struggle he could give up his flesh and blood like that! "I can now give myself to God utterly; no human emotion will ever be shuttling in between." The mortal agony behind those eyes! And all the while he had probably loved his child. To take Spring and Love out of her life, as if there were no human instincts to tell Ruth what was being denied her! And what must have been the man's thought as he came upon Ruth wearing a gown of her mother's?—a fair picture of the mother in the primrose days? Not a flicker of an eyelash; steel and granite outwardly.
The conceit of Howard Spurlock in imagining he knew what mental suffering was! But Enschede was right: Ruth must never know. To find the true father at the expense of the beautiful fairy tale Ruth had woven around the woman in the locket was an intolerable thought. But the father, to go his way forever alone! The iron in the man!—the iron in this child of his!
Wanting a little love, a caress now and then. Spurlock bent his head to his knees. He took into his soul some of the father's misery, some of the daughter's, to mingle with his own. Enschede, to have starved his heart as well as Ruth's because, having laid a curse, he knew not how to turn aside from it! How easily he might have forgotten the unworthy mother in the love of the child! And this day to hear her voice lifted in a quality of anathema. Poor Ruth: for a father, a madman; for a husband—a thief!
Spurlock rocked his body slightly. He knew that at this moment Ruth lay upon her bed in torment, for she was by nature tender; and the reaction of her scathing words, no matter how justifiable, would be putting scars on her soul. And he, her lawful husband, dared not go to her and console her! Accursed—all of them—Enschede, Ruth, and himself.
"What's the matter, lad, after all the wonderful fireworks at lunch?"
Spurlock beheld McClintock standing beside him. He waved a hand toward the sea.
"A sail?" said McClintock. "What about it?"
"Enschede."
"Enschede?—her father? What's happened?" McClintock sat down. "Do you mean to tell me he's come and gone in an hour? What the devil kind of a father is he?"
Spurlock shook his head.
"What's become of Ruth?"
"Gone to her room."
"Come, lad; let's have it," said McClintock. "Anything that concerns Ruth is of interest to me. What happened between Ruth and her father that made him hurry off without passing ordinary courtesies with me?"
"I suppose I ought to tell you," said Spurlock; "but it is understood that Ruth shall never know the truth."
"Not if it will hurt her."
"Hurt her? It would tear her to pieces; God knows she has had enough. Her mother…. Do you recall the night she showed you the face in the locket? Do you remember how she said—'If only my mother had lived'? Did you ever see anything more tender or beautiful?"
"I remember. Go on and tell me."
When Spurlock had finished the tale, touched here and there by his own imagination, McClintock made a negative sign.
"So that was it? And what the devil are you doing here, moping alone on the beach? Why aren't you with her in this hour of bitterness?"
"What can I do?"
"You can go to her and take her in your arms."
"I might have been able to do that if you hadn't told me … she cared."
"Man, she's your wife!"
"And I am a thief."
"You're a damn fool, too!" exploded the trader.
"I am as God made me."
"No. God gives us an equal chance; but we make ourselves. You are captain of your soul; don't forget your Henley. But I see now. That poor child, trying to escape, and not knowing how. Her father for fifteen years, and you now for the rest of her life! Tell her you're a thief. Get it off your soul."
"Add that to what she is now suffering? It's too late. She would not forgive me."
"And why should you care whether she forgave you or not?"
Spurlock jumped to his feet, the look of the damned upon his face. "Why? Because I love her! Because I loved her at the start, but was too big a fool to know it!"
His own astonishment was quite equal to McClintock's. The latter began to heave himself up from the sand.
"Did I hear you …" began McClintock.
"Yes!" interrupted Spurlock, savagely. "You heard me say it! It was inevitable. I might have known it. Another labyrinth in hell!"
A smile broke over the trader's face. It began in the eyes and spread to the lips: warm, embracing, even fatherly.
"Man, man! You're coming to life. There's something human about you now. Go to her and tell her. Put your arms around her and tell her you love her. Dear God, what a beautiful moment!"
The fire went out of Spurlock's eyes and the shadow of hopeless weariness fell upon him. "I can't make you understand; I can't make you see things as I see them. As matters now stand, I'm only a thief, not a blackguard. What!—add another drop to her cup? Who knows? Any day they may find me. So long as matters remain as they are, and they found me, there would be no shame for Ruth. Can't I make you see?"
"But I'm telling you Ruth loves you. And her kind of love forgives everything and anything but infidelity."
"You did not hear her when she spoke to her father; I did."
"But she would understand you; whereas she will never understand her father. Spurlock: 'tis Roundhead, sure enough. Go to her, I say, and take her in your arms, you poor benighted Ironsides! I can't make you see. Man, if you tell her you love her, and later they took you away to prison, who would sit at the prison gate until your term was up? Ruth. Why am I here—thirty years of loneliness? Because I know women, the good and the bad; and because I could not have the good, I would not take the bad. The woman I wanted was another man's wife. So here I am, king of all I survey, with a predilection for poker, a scorched liver, and a piano-player. But you! Ruth is your lawful wife. Not to go to her is wickeder than if I had run away with my friend's wife. You're a queer lad. With your pencil you see into the hearts of all; and without your pencil you are dumb and blind. Ruth is not another man's wife; she is all your own, for better or for worse. Have you thought of the monstrous lie you are adding to your theft?"
"Lie?" said Spurlock, astounded.
"Aye—to pretend to her that you don't care. That's a most damnable lie; and when she finds out, 'tis then she will not forgive. She'll have this hour always with her; and you failed her. Go to her."
"I can't."
"Afraid?"
"Yes."
This simple admission disarmed McClintock. "Well, well; I have given out of my wisdom. I'd like to shake you until your bones rattled; but the bones of a Roundhead wouldn't rattle to any purpose. Lad, I admire you even in your folly. Mountains out of molehills and armies out of windmills; and you'll tire yourself in one direction and shatter yourself in the other. There is strength in you—misguided. You will torture yourself and torture her all through life; but in the end she will pour the wine of her faith into a sound chalice. I would that you were my own."
"I, a thief?"
"Aye; thief, Roundhead and all. If a certain kink in your sense of honour will not permit you to go to her as a lover, go to her as a comrade. Talk to her of the new story; divert her; for this day her heart has been twisted sorely."
McClintock without further speech strode toward his bungalow; and half an hour later Spurlock, passing, heard the piano-tuning key at work.
Spurlock plodded through the heavy sand, leaden in the heart and mind as well as in the feet. But recently he had asked God to pile it all on him; and God had added this, with a fresh portion for Ruth. One thing—he could be thankful for that—the peak of his misfortunes had been reached; the world might come to an end now and not matter in the least.
Love … to take her in his arms and to comfort her: and then to add to her cup of bitterness the knowledge that her husband was a thief! For himself he did not care; God could continue to grind and pulverize him; but to add another grain to the evil he had already wrought upon Ruth was unthinkable. The future? He dared not speculate upon that.
He paused at the bamboo curtain of her room, which was in semi-darkness. He heard Rollo's stump beat a gentle tattoo on the floor.
"Ruth?"
Silence for a moment. "Yes. What is it?"
"Is there anything I can do?" The idiocy of the question filled him with the craving of laughter. Was there anything he could do!
"No, Hoddy; nothing."
"Would you like to have me come in and talk?" How tender that sounded!—talk!
"If you want to."
Bamboo and bead tinkled and slithered behind him. The dusky obscurity of the room was twice welcome. He did not want Ruth to see his own stricken countenance; nor did he care to see hers, ravaged by tears. He knew she had been weeping. He drew a chair to the side of the bed and sat down, terrified by the utter fallowness of his mind. Filled as he was with conflicting emotions, any stretch of silence would be dangerous. The fascination of the idea of throwing himself upon his knees and crying out all that was in his heart! As his eyes began to focus objects, he saw one of her arms extended upon the counterpane, in his direction, the hand clenched tightly.
"I am very wicked," she said. "After all, he is my father, Hoddy; and I cursed him. But all those empty years!… My heart was hot. I'm sorry. I do forgive him; but he will never know now."
"Write him," urged Spurlock, finding speech.
"He would return my letters unopened or destroy them."
That was true, thought Spurlock. No matter what happened, whether the road smoothed out or became still rougher, he would always be carrying this secret with him; and each time he recalled it, the rack.
"Would you rather be alone?"
"No. It's kind of comforting to have you there. You understand. I sha'n't cry any more. Tell me a story—with apple-blossoms in it—about people who are happy."
Miserably his thoughts shuttled to and fro in search of what he knew she wanted—a love story. Presently he began to weave a tale, sorry enough, with all the ancient claptraps and rusted platitudes. How long he sat there, reeling off this drivel, he never knew. When he reached the happy ending, he waited. But there was no sign from her. By and by he gathered enough courage to lean toward her. She had fallen asleep. The hand that had been clenched lay open, relaxed; and upon the palm he saw her mother's locket.
CHAPTER XXVI
Spurlock went out on his toes, careful lest the bamboo curtain rattle behind him. He went into the study and sat down at his table, but not to write. He drew out the check and the editorial letter. He had sold half a dozen short tales to third-rate magazines; but this letter had been issued from a distinguished editorial room, of international reputation. If he could keep it up—style and calibre of imagination—within a year the name of Taber would become widely known. Everything in the world to live for!—fame that he could not reap, love that he must not take! What was all this pother about hell as a future state?
By and by things began to stir on the table: little invisible things. The life with which he had endued these sheets of paper began to beckon imperiously. So he sharpened a score of pencils, and after fiddling about and rewriting the last page he had written the previous night, he plunged into work. It was hot and dry. There were mysterious rustlings that made him glance hopefully toward the sea. He was always deceived by these rustlings which promised wind and seldom fulfilled that promise.
"Time to dress for dinner," said Ruth from behind the curtain. "I don't see how you do it, Hoddy. It's so stuffy—and all that tobacco smoke!"
He inspected his watch. Half after six. He was astonished. For four hours he had shifted his own troubles to the shoulders of these imaginative characters.
"He called me a wanton, Hoddy. That is what I don't understand."
"There isn't an angel in heaven, Ruth, purer or sweeter than you are. No doubt—because he did not understand you—he thought you had run away with someone. The trader you spoke about: he disliked your father, didn't he? Well, he probably played your father a horrible practical joke."
"Perhaps that was it. I always wondered why he bought my mother's pearls so readily. I am dreadfully sad."
"I'll tell you what. I'll speak to McClintock to-night and see if he won't take us for a junket on The Tigress. Eh? Banging against the old rollers—that'll put some life into us both. Run along while I rig up and get the part in my hair straight."
"If he had only been my father!—McClintock!"
"God didn't standardize human beings, Ruth; no grain of wheat is like another. See the new litter of Mrs. Pig? By George, every one of them looks like the other; and yet each one attacks the source of supply with a squeal and an oof that's entirely different from his brothers' and sisters'. Put on that new dress—the one that's all white. We'll celebrate that check, and let the rest of the world go hang."
"You are very good to me, Hoddy."
Something reached down into his heart and twisted it. But he held the smile until she turned away from the curtain. He dressed mechanically; so many moves this way, so many moves that. The evening breeze came; the bamboo shades on the veranda clicked and rasped; the loose edges of the manuscript curled. To prevent the leaves from blowing about, should a blow develop, he distributed paper weights. Still unconscious of anything he did physically.
He tried not to think—of Ruth with her mother's locket, of her misguided father, taking his lonely way to sea. He drew compellingly upon his new characters to keep him out of this melancholy channel; but they ebbed and ebbed; he could not hold them. Enschede: no human emotion should ever again shuttle between him and God. As if God would not continue to mock him so long as his brain held a human thought! God had given him a pearl without price, and he had misunderstood until this day.
McClintock was in a gay mood at dinner that night; but he did not see fit to give these children the true reason. For a long time there had been a standing offer from the company at Copeley's to take over the McClintock plantation; and to-day he had decided to sell. Why? Because he knew that when these two young people left, the island would become intolerable. For nearly thirty years he had lived here in contented loneliness; then youth had to come and fill him with discontent.
He would give The Tigress a triple coat of paint, and take these two on a long cruise, wherever they wanted to go—Roundhead and Seraph, the blunderbus and the flaming angel. And there was another matter. To have sprung this upon them to-night would have been worth a thousand pounds. But his lips were honour-locked.
There was a pint of champagne and a quart of mineral water (both taboo) at his elbow. In a tall glass the rind of a Syrian orange was arranged in spiral form. The wine bubbled and seethed; and the exquisite bouquet of oranges permeated the room.
"I sha'n't offer any of these to you two," he said; "but I know you won't mind me having an imitation king's peg. The occasion is worth a dash of the grape, lad. You're on the way to big things. A thousand dollars is a lot of money for an author to earn."
Spurlock laughed. "Drink your peg; don't bother about me. I wouldn't touch the stuff for all the pearls in India. A cup of lies. I know all about it."
Ruth's eyes began to glow. She had often wondered if Hoddy would ever go back to it. She knew now that he never would.
"Sometimes a cup of lies is a cheering thing," replied the trader.
"In wine there is truth. What about that?"
"It means that drink cheats a man into telling things he ought not to. And there's your liver."
"Ay, and there's my liver. It'll be turning over to-morrow. But never mind that," said McClintock grinning as he drew the dish of bread-fruit toward him. "To-morrow I shall have a visitor. I do not say guest because that suggests friendship; and I am no friend of this Wastrel. I've told you about him; and you wrote a shrewd yarn on the subject."
"The pianist?"
"Yes. He'll be here two or three days. So Mrs. Spurlock had better stick to the bungalow."
"Ah," said Spurlock; "that kind of a man."
"Many kinds; a thorough outlaw. We've never caught him cheating at cards; too clever; but we know he cheats. But he's witty and amusing, and when reasonably drunk he can play the piano like a Paderewski. He's an interpretative genius, if there ever was one. Nobody knows what his real name is, but he's a Hollander. Kicked out of there for something shady. A remittance man. A check arrives in Batavia every three months. He has a grand time. Then he goes stony, and beats his way around the islands for another three months. Retribution has a queer way of acting sometimes. The Wastrel—as we call him—cannot play when he's sober; hands too shaky. He can't play cards, either, when he's sober. Alcohol—would you believe it?—steadies his nerves and keens his brain: which is against the laws of gravitation, you might say. He has often told me that if he could play sober, he would go to America and reap a fortune."
"You never told me what he is like," said Spurlock.
"I thought it best that you should imagine him. You were wide the mark, physically; otherwise you had him pat. He is big and powerful; one of those drinkers who show it but little outwardly. Whisky kills him suddenly; it does not sap him gradually. In his youth he must have been a remarkably handsome man, for he is still handsome. I don't believe he is much past forty. A bad one in a rough-and-tumble; all the water-front tricks. His hair is oddly streaked with gray—I might say a dishonourable gray. Perhaps in the beginning the women made fools of themselves over him."
"That's reasonable. I don't know how to explain it," said Spurlock, "but music hits women queerly. I've often seen them storming the Carnegie Hall stage."
"Aye, music hits them. I'm thinking that the Wastrel was one day a celebrated professional; and the women were partly the cause of his fall. Women! He is always chanting the praise of some discovery; sometimes it will be a native, often a white woman out of the stews. So it will be wise for Mrs. Spurlock to keep to the bungalow until the rogue goes back to Copeley's. Queer world. For every Eden, there will be a serpent; for every sheepfold, there will be a wolf."
"What's the matter, Ruth?" asked Spurlock, anxiously.
"It has been … rather a hard day, Hoddy," Ruth answered. She was wan and white.
So, after the dinner was over, Spurlock took her home; and worked far into the night.
* * * * *
The general office was an extension of the west wing of the McClintock bungalow. From one window the beach was always visible; from another, the stores. Spurlock was invariably at the high desk in the early morning, poring over ledgers, and giving the beach and the stores an occasional glance. Whenever McClintock had guests, he loafed with them on the west veranda in the morning.
This morning he heard voices—McClintock's and the Wastrel's.
"Sorry," said McClintock, "but I must ask you to check out this afternoon before five. I'm having some unexpected guests."
"Ah! Sometimes I wonder I don't run amok and kill someone," said the Wastrel, in broken English. "I give you all of my genius, and you say—'Get out!' I am some kind of a dog."
"That is your fault, none of mine. Without whisky," went on McClintock, "your irritability is beyond tolerance. You have said a thousand times that there was no shame in you. Nobody can trust you. Nobody can anticipate your next move. We tolerate you for your genius, that's a fact. But underneath this tolerance there is always the vague hope that your manhood will someday reassert itself."
The Wastrel laughed. "Did you ever hear me whine?"
"No," admitted McClintock
"You've no objection to my dropping in again later, after your guests go?"
"No. When I'm alone I don't mind."
"Very well. You won't mind if I empty this gin?"
"No. Befuddle yourself, if you want to."
Silence.
Spurlock mused over the previous night. After he had eaten dinner with Ruth, he had gone to McClintock's; and he had heard music such as he had heard only in the great concert halls. The picturesque scoundrel had the true gift; and Spurlock was filled with pity at the thought of such genius gone to pot. To use it as a passport to card-tables and gin-bottles! McClintock wasn't having any guests; at any rate, he had not mentioned the fact.
Spurlock had sensed what had gone completely over McClintock's head—that this was the playing of a soul in damnation. His own peculiar genius—a miracle key to the hidden things in men's souls—had given him this immediate and astonishing illumination. As the Wastrel played, Spurlock knew that the man saw the inevitable end—death by drink; saw the glory of the things he had thrown away, the past, once so full of promise. And, decently as he could, McClintock was giving the man the boot.
There was, it might be said, a double illumination. But for Ruth, he, Howard Spurlock, might have ended upon the beach, inescapably damned. The Dawn Pearl. After all, the Wastrel was in luck: he was alone.
These thoughts, however, came to a broken end. From the window he saw The Tigress faring toward Copeley's! Then somebody was coming? Some political high muckamuck, probably. Still, he was puzzled because McClintock had not spoken.
Presently McClintock came in. "General inspection after lunch; drying bins, stores and the young palms south-east. It will be hot work, but it must be done at once."
"All right, Mr. McClintock." Spurlock lowered his voice. "You are giving that chap the boot rather suddenly?"
"Had to."
"Somebody coming?"
"Yes. Top-side insurance people. You know all this stuff is insured. They'll inspect the schooner on the way back," McClintock lied, cheerfully.
"The Wastrel seemed to take it all right."
"Oh, it's a part of the game," said McClintock. "He knows he had to take it. There are some islands upon which he is not permitted to land any more."
At luncheon, preoccupied in thought, Spurlock did not notice the pallor on Ruth's cheeks or the hunted look in her eyes. She hung about his chair, followed him to the door, touched his sleeve timidly, all the while striving to pronounce the words which refused to rise to her tongue.
He patted the hand on his sleeve. "Could you get any of the music last night?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful! It's an infernal shame."
"Couldn't … couldn't I go with you this afternoon?"
"Too hot."
"But I'm used to that, Hoddy," she said, eagerly.
"I'd rather you went over the last four chapters, which I haven't polished yet. You know what's what. Slash and cut as much as you please. I'll knock off at tea. By-by."
The desperate eagerness to go with him—and she dared not voice it! She watched him until McClintock joined him and the two made off toward the south. She turned back into the hall. Rollo began to cavort.
"No, Rollo; not this afternoon."
"But I've got to go!" insisted Rollo, in perfectly understandable dog-talk.
"Be still!"
"Oh, come along! I've just got to have my muck bath. I'm burning up."
"Rollo!"
There were no locks or panelled doors in the bungalow; and Rollo was aware of it. He dashed against the screen door before she could catch him and made the veranda. Once more he begged; but as Ruth only repeated her sharp command, he spun about and raced toward the jungle. Immediately he was gone, she regretted that she had not followed.
Hidden menace; a prescience of something dreadful about to happen. Ruth shivered; she was cold. Alone; not even the dog to warn her, and Hoddy deep in the island somewhere. Help—should she need it—from the natives was out of the question. She had not made friends with any; so they still eyed her askance.
Yes; she had heard the music the night before. She had resisted as long as she could; then she had stolen over. She had to make sure, for the peace of her mind, that this was really the man. One glance through the window at that picturesque head had been sufficient. A momentary petrifaction, and terror had lent wings to her feet.
He had found her by the same agency her father had: native talk, which flew from isle to isle as fast as proas could carry it. She was a lone white woman, therefore marked.
What was it in her heart or mind or soul that went out to this man?
Music—was that it? Was he powerless to stir her without the gift?
But hadn't he fascinated her by his talk, gentle and winning? Ah,
but that had been after he had played for her.
She had gone into Morgan's one afternoon for a bag of salt. One hour later she had gone back to the mission—without the salt. For the first time in her life she had heard music; the door to enchanted sounds had been flung wide. For hours after she had not been sensible to life, only to exquisite echoes.
Of course she had often heard sailors hammering out their ditties. Sometimes ships would stop three or four days for water and repairs; and the men would carouse in the back room at Morgan's.
Day after day—five, to be exact—she had returned to Morgan's; and each time the man would understand what had drawn her, and with a kindly smile would sit down at the piano and play. Sometimes the music would be tender and dreamy, like a native mother's crooning to her young; sometimes it would be so gay that the flesh tingled and the feet were urged to dance; again, it would be like the storms crashing, thunderous.
On the fifth day he had ventured speech with her. He told her something about music, the great world outside. Then he had gone away. But two weeks later he returned. Again he played for her; and again the eruption of the strange senses that lay hidden in her soul. He talked with his manner gentle and kindly. Shy, grateful in her loneliness for this unexpected attention, she had listened. She had even confided to him how lonely it was in the island. He had promised her some books, for she had voiced her hunger for stories. On his third visit to the island she had surprised him, that is, she had glanced up suddenly and caught the look of the beast in his eyes.
And it had not shocked her! It was this appalling absence of indignation that had put terror into her heart. The same look she had often seen in the eyes of the drunken beachcombers her father had brought home, and it had not filled her with horror. And now she comprehended that the man (she had never known him by any name) knew she had surprised the look and had not resented it.
Still, thereafter she had avoided Morgan's; partly out of fear and partly because of her father's mandate. Yet the thing hidden within her called and called.
Traps, set with peculiar cunning; she had encountered them everywhere. By following her he had discovered her secret nook in the rocks. Here she would find candy awaiting her, bits of ribbon, books. She wondered even at this late day how she had been able to hold her maddening curiosity in check. Books! She knew now what had saved her—her mother's hand, reaching down from heaven, had set the giver's flaming eyes upon the covers of these books. One day she had thrown all the gifts into the lagoon, and visited the secret nook no more.
And here he was, but a hundred yards away, this wastrel who trailed his genius through the mud. Hoddy! All her fears fell away. Between herself and yonder evil mind she had the strongest buckler God could give—love. Hoddy. No other man should touch her; she was Hoddy's, body and soul, in this life and after.
She turned into the study, sat down at the table and fingered the pencils, curiously stirred. Lead, worth nothing at all until Hoddy picked them up; then they became full of magic. She began to read, and presently she entered another world, and remained in it for two hours. She read on and on, now thrilled by the swiftly moving drama, now enraptured by the tender passages of love. Love…. He could imagine it even if he could not feel it. That was the true miracle of the gift; without actual experience, to imagine love and hate and greed and how they would react upon each other; and then, when these passions had served their temporary purpose, to cast them aside for new imaginings.
She heard the bamboo curtain rattle slightly. She looked up quickly. The Wastrel, his eyes full of humorous evil, stood inside the room.
CHAPTER XXVII
His idea, cleverly planned, was to shatter her resistance, to confound her suddenly by striking her mind with words which would rob her coherent thought. Everything in his favour—the luck of the gods! The only white men were miles down the coast. She might scream until her voice failed; the natives would not come to her aid; they never meddled with the affairs of the whites.
"It is droll," he said. "Your father—poor imbecile!—believes we ran away together. I arranged that he should. So that way is closed. You never can go back."
There was a roaring in her ears like that of angry waters. Wanton!… This, then, was what her father had meant. And he had gone away without knowing the truth!
"My proa boys are ready; the wind is brisk; and in an hour we shall be beyond all pursuit. Will you come sensibly, or shall I carry you? You are mine!"
Ruth's peculiar education had not vitiated the primitive senses; they were always on guard; and in a moment such as this they rushed instantly to the surface. Danger, the most terrible she had ever faced, was substantially in this room. She must kill this man, or kill herself. She knew it. No tricks would serve. There would be no mercy in this man. Any natural fineness would be numbed by drink. To-morrow he might be sorry; but to-day, this hour!
She rose, not quickly, but with a dignity which only accentuated her beauty.
"And you ran away with a weakling! You denied me for a puppet!"
"My lawful husband."
"Ah, yes, yes; lawful husbands in these parts are those who can take and hold…. As I shall take and hold." The Wastrel advanced.
"If you touch me I will kill you," said Ruth, grasping the scissors which lay beside the pencils—Hoddy's!
The Wastrel laughed, still advancing. "Fire! That was what drew me to you in the beginning. Well, kill me. Either we go forth together, or they shall bury me."
"Beast!"
For a little while they manoeuvred around the table. Suddenly the Wastrel took hold of the edge and flung the table aside. Even in this dread moment Ruth was conscious of a pathetic interest in the scattering pencils.
He reached for her, and she struck savagely. But with the skill of a fencer he met the blow and broke it, seizing the wrist.
"It looks as though, we should go together," he said, pulling her toward him.
Ruth was strong in body and soul. She fought him with tooth and nail. Three times she escaped. Chairs were overturned. Once she reached the bamboo curtain, clutched at it and tore it down as his arms went around her waist. The third time she escaped she reached the inconsequent barricade of the overturned table.
"If there is any honour in you, stop and think. I love my husband. I love him!" She was weak and dizzy: from horror as much as from physical exertion. She knew that the next time he caught her she would not be able to free herself. "What good would it do you to destroy me? For I have courage to kill myself."
The Wastrel laughed. He had heard this talk before.
The race began once more; but this time Ruth knew that there would be no escape. If only she had thought to plunge the scissors into her own heart! Hoddy … to return and find her either gone or dead! But even as the Wastrel's arms gathered her, there came the sound of hurrying steps on the veranda.
"Ruth?"
"Hoddy!" she cried.
Spurlock stepped into the room. One of those hanging moments ensued—hypnotic.
Spurlock had seen Rollo heading for the jungle, and for some reason he could not explain the incident had bothered him. Fretting and fidgeting, he had, after an hour or so, turned to McClintock.
"I'm going back for Ruth."
"Nonsense!"
"Something's wrong."
"Wrong? What the devil could be wrong?" McClintock had demanded, irascibly. He had particular reasons for wanting to keep Spurlock away from the jetty.
"I haven't any answer for that; but I'm going back after her. She wanted to come, and I wouldn't let her."
"Run along, then."
* * * * *
"To me, you dirty blackguard!" cried Spurlock, flinging aside his helmet. That he was hot and breathless was of no matter; in that moment he would have faced a dozen Samsons.
"She was mine before you ever saw her." The Wastrel tried to reach
Ruth's lips.
"You lie!"
Head down, fists doubled, Spurlock rushed: only to be met with a kick which was intended for the groin but which struck the thigh instead. Even then it sent Spurlock spinning backward, to crash against the wall. He felt no pain from this cowardly kick. That would come later. Again he rushed. He dodged the boot this time, and smashed his left upon the Wastrel's lips, leaving them bloody pulp.