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II. The wastrel's returning sanity is described in verses 17-20a. 'He came to himself. Then he had been beside himself before. It is insanity to try to shake off God, to aim at independence, to wander from Him, to fling away our 'substance, that is, our true selves, and to starve among the swine-troughs.
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.
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. The Wastrel did not relish this. He flung Ruth aside, careless whether she fell or not.
At first afraid of what might happen to him, he had stood aside and let the blame be shouldered upon young Yarnell. But later his conscience had forced him to a confession. It is enough here to say that he was later tried and acquitted, thus closing the chapter of the wastrel's tragic death.
Without a word or a gesture, the Wastrel turned and staggered forth, out of the orbit of these two, having been thrust into it for a single purpose already described. For a while they stood there, silent, motionless, staring at the doorway where still a few strings of the bamboo curtain swayed and twisted, agitated by the Wastrel's passage. "I was going to die, Hoddy!" she whispered.
The next instant I saw my companion lashing out with the butt of his pistol, and surrounded by a quartette of assailants. In the moonlight he loomed gigantic and heroic of proportion. I, too, was surrounded and conscious only of a wild new elation and battle-lust, as I fought. Suddenly there came a terrific shock, preceded by a wildly screaming hiss in the bowels of the Wastrel's hull.
Egg-stealin' was just the little hole-an'-corner wickedness that 'd come nateral to 'em." "I rec'lect now," said Job Lear very slowly, "that the wain-rope was wet i' my hands when I unhitched 'en that night from the hook, an' I wondered, it bein' the end of a week's dryth. But in the dark an' the confusion o' savin' the wastrel's life it slipped my thoughts, else "
"That's more than I should care to undertake," said the black-browed, free-tongued Garliestonian. "'Tis no sort of a hearty welcome ye will get at the Last Day when ye face the Throne, if ye have such a wastrel's sins to answer for." "Silence!" said Kennedy. "We are close in and we shall see in a minute. You, foreigner, if I tell you to shoot shoot but not before!"
"That wastrel's been wanting something," said Cæsar. "The tide's down on him," said Pete. "Always was, and always will be. He was born at low water, and he'll die on the rocks. Borrowing money, eh?" said Cæsar, with a searching glance. "Trying to," said Pete indifferently. "Then lend it, sir," said Cæsar promptly. "He's not to trust, but lend it on his heirship.
In this moment he could have stamped upon the Wastrel's face, and ended the affair; but all that was clean in him, chivalrous, revolted at the thought. Not even for Ruth could he do such a beastly thing. So, bloody but unbeaten, weak and spent but undaunted, he waited for the Wastrel to spring up. The unequal battle went on.
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