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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.
"I remember now!" interrupted McClintock. "This Enschede the missioner. One of his converted Kanakas dropped in one day. He called Enschede the Bellower. Seems Enschede's daughter ran away and left him, and he's combing the islands in search of her. He's a hundred miles sou'-east of me." "Well, this young lady I was about to describe," said the doctor, "is Enschede's daughter."
But if he's in bed, how the devil is he going with me, supposing I decide to hire him? The mudhook comes up to-morrow night." "I can get him aboard all right. A sea voyage under sail will be the making of him." "Let's toddle over to the Victoria at once. I'll do anything in reason for you, old top; but no pig in a poke. Enschede's daughter. Things happen out this way. That's a queer yarn."
A beachcomber in embryo, and she had lent a hand through habit as much as through pity. The grim mockery of it! those South Sea loafers, taking advantage of Enschede's Christianity and imposing upon him, accepting his money and medicines and laughing behind his back! No doubt they made the name a byword and a subject for ribald jest in the waterfront bars.
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.
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."
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