ng eyes. He drew up his club for
the blow. The slender fingers were probing upward, behind his jawbone,
and he was choking.

Then, it seemed to Martin, a stream of liquid fire flooded his veins,
searing his entire body. The belaying-pin dropped from his nerveless
hand, his arms dropped, his knees sagged.

The terrible fingers squeezed tighter. He could feel his eyeballs
starting, his tongue swelling. The flame consumed his vitals. It was
hellish pain--quite the sharpest agony Martin had ever felt.

He was upon his back on the floor. The fingers were gone, but the
awful pain continued. His wits were swimming. A pair of soft arms
were about him. His reeling head was cushioned against a loved and
fragrant breast; a dear voice spoke his name anxiously.

"Martin, Martin! What have they done? Oh, Martin, speak to me!" He
tried to speak, but could not.

Then the loved presence was gone, and he was alone. A face bent over
him!--a yellow face. It was a well-remembered face, the face of little
Dr. Ichi. But what a towsled, bedraggled successor to the former dandy!

Ichi was smiling at him. It was all very strange to Martin, unreal,
like the fancies of a delirium. A mist came before his eyes and
blotted out the smiling face. But his senses left him with Ichi's
courteously spoken words in his ears:

"Very, very sorry, Mr. Blake. You were of such roughness we were
compelled to use the ju-jitsu!"

CHAPTER XV

IN THE LAZARET

It seemed to Martin he was wandering in a vast and thirsty desert. To
the very core of his being he was dry. Drink! Drink! With his whole
life he lusted drink. He waded through that parched world, burning up
with thirst.

Despite his efforts, his mouth sagged open, and his tongue, swollen to
prodigious size, burst through its proper limits and hung down upon his
breast, broiling in the rays of the hot sun. To make the keener his
thirst, there lay before him a delectable oasis, a patch of moist
green, with playing fountains and rippling cascades plainly visible to
his tortured gaze. He struggled toward it, and always, as he neared
it, some malign influence clutched his wrists--which unaccountably
stuck out behind him--and jerked him back.

For ages and ages he waded through the dry sand toward the water, and
ever the Evil One who controlled his wrists kept him from attaining his
desire. Water! Water! He was in agony for water. Water! Would he
never reach that b