CHAPTER XXXIV.AMERICAN AGAINST JAP.Stripped to sleeveless sweaters, trousers and light rubber-soled shoes, Frank and the Jap faced each other on the huge mat spread on the floor of a seldom-used room above the gymnasium.The spectators stood around, feeling a thrill of excitement. One and all they seemed to anticipate something unusual.Hashi still smiled. Frank was calm and grave.Fred Fillmore found it difficult to control his features to hide an expression of eager satisfaction and malignance.“This is my time to triumph!” he thought. “Merriwell walked into the trap like a lamb going to the slaughter. While he is recovering from a broken leg I’ll be perfecting my plans to steal Inza Burrage from him. I’m bound to have her! She shall be mine!”Hodge was watching Fillmore, and the expression on the fellow’s face made Bart long to hit him.“Is the honorable gentleman quite prepared?” gently inquired Hashi.“Quite,” nodded Merry.They crouched and moved toward each other. Hashi held himself on the alert, waiting and expecting his opponent to attack with a rush.It is a feature of jujutsu to seem to yield before the first rush of the enemy, but to turn the attack to the undoing of the assailant, actually causing him to usehis own force to aid in his defeat. Therefore Hashi was a bit disappointed when Merry failed to come after him in the style of most American wrestlers.“I must provoke him to attack,” thought the Jap.Aloud he observed:“The honorable gentleman seems exceedingly overcome by vastly much timidness.”It was now Frank’s turn to smile.“I haven’t observed you making any headlong plunge,” he retorted.“I would humbly refrain from alarming you greatly more, discreet sir,” said Hashi.“That is indeed very considerate of you.”“Well, well!” cried Fillmore, with a mocking intonation; “I do believe Merriwell is frightened!”“I don’t see the professor displaying amazing courage about coming to a clinch,” laughed Spaulding.“That’s his style.”“Perhaps it’s Merriwell’s style.”Frank and Hashi circled slowly. At last, tired of waiting, the Jap reached out swiftly as if to get a sudden hold on Frank; but he drew back instantly and waited again.Merry knew it was an effort to lead him on.Twice Hashi repeated the movement, and once he came near falling into Frank’s clutch, for Merry made a lightning snap at his wrist and barely missed.Finally Hashi came still nearer. Suddenly he felt a hand close on the back of his neck. Merriwell had caught him before he could prevent it.He knew now that Frank could move with such swiftness that light itself seemed barely faster.Hashi shot his own hand up and tried to secure a hold on Frank’s wrist, with the intention of seeking a certain nerve with his fingers and robbing the American youth of strength in that arm.Frank read his intention and prevented it by his manner of maintaining his hold, at the same time closing on the professor’s arm at the shoulder.Hashi twisted and snapped away barely in time to prevent the American from finding one of those paralyzing nerves.He continued to smile, but he understood that Merriwell was inclined to meet him at his own game.A moment later Frank secured another hold on the Jap. Instead of coming at Hashi, he drew the yellow athlete toward him.Then there was a grapple.“Ah!” cried the spectators.Hashi sought to get one of Frank’s hands in a certain manner. Being baffled, he changed instantly and tried to bring himself into a position of advantage by twisting Merriwell’s arm behind his back. Again he was defeated.In the meantime Merry had continued to seek to secure a hold on the little man, finally obtaining it. They went to their knees together.Hashi broke Frank’s hold. As they came up, the Jap again sought to twist Frank’s arm behind his back. He was prevented in this, and he clasped Merry’s body behind, getting him round the waist. Frank slipped down, reached up and closed his fingers in a lock about the back of Hashi’s neck. Hashi’s waist lock held, but Merry went over, sending the heels ofthe Jap in a half circle through the air. Hashi landed flat on his back, with the American full upon him.It was a clean case of a wrestler’s trick being baffled by another trick, and the Jap was down.A shout went up from the spectators.Fillmore looked astounded and dismayed.But the Jap did not let Frank rise. Instead of that, as Merry was getting up, Hashi caught one of his legs.Fillmore caught his breath. He knew what that meant, and he was satisfied now that Hashi had permitted Frank to bring about the fall in order to obtain this opportunity.Frank seemed warned just in time, for he gave a squirming whirl that brought him round facing in the opposite direction and prevented the Jap from securing the leverage he desired.“Let go of that leg!” he commanded.But he did not wait to see if the Jap obeyed. He did not dare risk it. Instead of waiting, he dropped in such a manner that his free knee was driven into Hashi’s wind.That broke the fellow’s hold.Fillmore saw this and breathed a curse of dismay.Hodge was stirred up.“What did he try to do, Merry?” he palpitated.“Oh, nothing,” smiled Frank. “These jujutsu men never recognize a fair fall. To them it means nothing to be thrown flat on the back. He was trying for another hold, and I had to check him.”The Jap was breathing with difficulty. For somemoments the smile seemed a sickly one, but he maintained it, even as the Japanese soldier smiles in the face of intense suffering and death.Fillmore gave Hashi water and hovered over him.“You failed!” he whispered.“Sufficient is the time, honorable sir,” answered Hashi softly. “I nearly made accomplishment.”“Look out! I’m afraid you led him to suspect. He’ll be on his guard.”“Nothing can save the agile gentleman when I obtain the sufficient hold,” declared the Jap.Merriwell was warmly congratulated by Spaulding and the others.“That’s only the beginning,” he said. “The little man let himself go over that he might get his hold on me. He is recovering, and he’ll be very dangerous after this.”Hashi rose and took his place on the mat.“Will the honorable gentleman athlete again give me the exceeding pleasure?” he invited.Frank stepped out.“The professor has peculiar ideas of pleasure,” laughed Harrow. “I wouldn’t regard it as much sport to have the wind driven out of me in such a manner.”Again the American and the Jap crouched and advanced with the greatest caution. Again Frank finally tried for the neck hold, but this time Hashi avoided it.“Get him! get him!” hissed Fillmore.“I’ll get you some day!” muttered Hodge.Hashi was disappointed because Frank would not attack after the American fashion. Once both secured a hold at the same moment, but instantly both broke,each realizing that the hold of the other was dangerous.They were like crouching panthers.“Get his arm!” mentally cried Fillmore. “If you can’t break his leg, break his arm!”Suddenly there was a mix-up. The movements of the combatants were swift and sudden. They grappled, broke, grappled again, twisted, turned, writhed. Frank saw and baffled each effort on the part of Hashi to get his fingers in contact with some paralyzing nerve. In return the little man repeatedly defeated Merriwell’s strategic moves.Suddenly Hashi went down, catching his arm with a twisting lock about Frank’s right leg near the knee.“He has him!” thought Fillmore. “Now he’ll break the fellow’s leg as if it were a pipestem!”Instantly Frank stooped and seized the shoulder of the Jap, his grip being one of iron as he drove his thumb into a certain spot. Had he not located the spot accurately Hashi would have broken his leg in a twinkling. As it was, he found a nerve that completely paralyzed the yellow man’s whole arm and rendered him helpless to exert the leverage on the imprisoned limb which must have crippled Merry.No cry of pain escaped the vicious little man, but his hold was broken in a twinkling and Frank was free.Merry knew now what had been attempted. The mere warning had not fully proved to him the dastardly purpose of his enemy; but now there was no doubt about it. He laughed aloud.“Now the Japanese whelp gets his medicine!” grated Bart Hodge.He had heard Merriwell laugh like that before, and he knew what usually followed.Frank seized his opponent and lifted him from the floor, giving him a fling that sent him clear of the mat and slam against the nearest wall.One thing practiced by the Japanese is the art of falling. Hashi was jarred, of course, when he collided with the wall, but he fell to the floor and sat up smiling in his usual bland manner.That smile, however, was the mask which concealed the intense rage and chagrin which he felt. He knew now that the American was well up in the art of Japanese self-defense, besides being master of the American style of wrestling.Hashi felt that he would be disgraced if he permitted Frank to defeat him. Besides, he would not earn the five hundred dollars.But the disappointment of the Jap was not equal to that of Fred Fillmore.“Fiends, take him!” whispered the young rascal. “Is he going to let Merriwell do him up?”He had fancied Merriwell’s action in hurling his antagonist against the wall would end the struggle; but vicious hope had new birth in his heart when he beheld the smiling yellow man pick himself up from the floor.“The honorable gentleman is very skillful,” purred Hashi, toddling back to the mat.There was a steely glitter in Frank’s eyes as he regarded the tough, little rascal.“Wait a moment, Hashi,” he commanded.“Respected sir, yours to command,” said the Jap.“I am onto your trick now,” said Frank. “I know what you are trying to do. Jujutsu teaches a man how to break limbs. The hold you had on my leg would have crippled me if I had not moved quickly to prevent it. But a leg or an arm is not the only thing that may be broken by such a method.”“Oh, respected sir——”“You may as well cut out the respected sir! You tried to break my leg. It is no more difficult to break a neck. I warn you to hold up. Don’t try that trick again if you respect your neck!”“That’s the talk, Merry!” cried Hodge.“The honorable gentleman is so greatly suspicious!” murmured Hashi.“Now come ahead,” invited Frank, stepping to the very centre of the mat. “I shall defend myself at any cost to your limbs or life.”“Curse him!” whispered Fillmore.Some of the spectators clapped their hands.“This was to be a friendly trial of skill,” said Maurice Spaulding.“Of course it was!” cried Cutler Priest.Hashi hesitated. For a moment his eyes left Frank. They met the eyes of Fillmore, and there he saw a command for him to go on.“The honorable gentleman is wonderfully skillful,” said the Jap. “I congratulate him upon his excellent skill, and his hand I would shake.”Was it possible that the Jap acknowledged himself beaten?Frank was not duped, although he accepted the hand extended. He was prepared when Hashi instantly tried to obtain the arm lock which would have rendered him helpless.Merry had a grip of steel, and he exerted it suddenly, crushing the fingers of the Jap.Hashi was baffled again. Even though it seemed that the American would take his hand off, the little man did not wholly lose his persistent smile.When he had baffled his antagonist, Frank suddenly changed his method and caught the fellow in a wrestling grip. Together they went to the mat, where Merry obtained a half-Nelson hold.As Hashi felt his head bent under him and realized he must quickly go over upon his back, he flung his feet straight up into the air, and, using his head for a pivot, attempted to spin out of the hold like a top.Merry anticipated that.With his free arm he caught the Jap about the waist and checked the spinning. Then he promptly turned Hashi over flat and fair upon his back.“Great—great work!” cried the spectators.Merriwell was up, cool and unruffled.Fillmore longed to leap out and deal Frank a blow.“No use!” he thought despairingly. “No use! The miserable Jap can’t do it!”Hashi’s smile clung, but it had lost its confidence and self-assurance.“The honorable gentleman has the way in which to mix wrestling and jujutsu,” he said, as he rose. “In this excellent manner he is using two arts against one.It is not an eminently fair test of one competent style against another.”“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Spaulding. “He confesses himself beaten!”“I beg the august gentleman’s respectful pardon,” said the yellow man. “I was humbly seeking to elucidate why I have the unfortunate success encountered.”Then he again stepped toward Merry.“Why, he’s the kind that never gets enough!” exclaimed Raymond Harrow.“What do you think about your Japanese wizard, Fillmore?” asked one of the witnesses.Fred attempted to answer, but his voice was husky and his words choked in his throat.One more lightning trick did Hashi attempt. He did it without apparent preparation or thought, hoping this change of method might take Frank off his guard.Frank baffled the attempt, seeming to read the Jap’s very thoughts. He went in for another wrestling hold, but Hashi slipped away. The Jap tried to work Frank’s movement by securing a hold that would turn it against Merry; but this trial again brought about his undoing. Merry secured a hold and hurled Hashi over his head.The Jap fell sprawling on the mat, sat up, rose quickly, bowed low and confessed:“One art against two is not sufficient. The wrestler alone I will humbly undertake to defeat; but the wrestler who has also the accomplishment of jujutsu is indeed too much.”Fillmore’s scheme had failed.Now Frank turned on the rascal.“Next time you hire a tool to break my leg he’ll not escape as easily as this one has,” he said.“What do you mean?” snarled Fred, his face pale.“I mean what you heard me say. I was warned. You thought I had been led blindly into the trap. Fellow, you had better have a care! If you annoy me further I’ll not bother with your tools, but I’ll reach for the fountain head of the trouble. That is all I have to say.”“You’re crazy!” sneered Fillmore.But suddenly he found himself looked on with aversion by Merriwell’s companions, who began to mutter among themselves. Their black looks and ominous behavior alarmed him.“I believe the fools are going to jump on me!” he thought.Fear overcame him, and he made haste to get out of the room and the building, leaving Hashi to follow when he would.Although he had not broken Frank Merriwell’s leg, Hashi had the five hundred dollars.
CHAPTER XXXIV.AMERICAN AGAINST JAP.Stripped to sleeveless sweaters, trousers and light rubber-soled shoes, Frank and the Jap faced each other on the huge mat spread on the floor of a seldom-used room above the gymnasium.The spectators stood around, feeling a thrill of excitement. One and all they seemed to anticipate something unusual.Hashi still smiled. Frank was calm and grave.Fred Fillmore found it difficult to control his features to hide an expression of eager satisfaction and malignance.“This is my time to triumph!” he thought. “Merriwell walked into the trap like a lamb going to the slaughter. While he is recovering from a broken leg I’ll be perfecting my plans to steal Inza Burrage from him. I’m bound to have her! She shall be mine!”Hodge was watching Fillmore, and the expression on the fellow’s face made Bart long to hit him.“Is the honorable gentleman quite prepared?” gently inquired Hashi.“Quite,” nodded Merry.They crouched and moved toward each other. Hashi held himself on the alert, waiting and expecting his opponent to attack with a rush.It is a feature of jujutsu to seem to yield before the first rush of the enemy, but to turn the attack to the undoing of the assailant, actually causing him to usehis own force to aid in his defeat. Therefore Hashi was a bit disappointed when Merry failed to come after him in the style of most American wrestlers.“I must provoke him to attack,” thought the Jap.Aloud he observed:“The honorable gentleman seems exceedingly overcome by vastly much timidness.”It was now Frank’s turn to smile.“I haven’t observed you making any headlong plunge,” he retorted.“I would humbly refrain from alarming you greatly more, discreet sir,” said Hashi.“That is indeed very considerate of you.”“Well, well!” cried Fillmore, with a mocking intonation; “I do believe Merriwell is frightened!”“I don’t see the professor displaying amazing courage about coming to a clinch,” laughed Spaulding.“That’s his style.”“Perhaps it’s Merriwell’s style.”Frank and Hashi circled slowly. At last, tired of waiting, the Jap reached out swiftly as if to get a sudden hold on Frank; but he drew back instantly and waited again.Merry knew it was an effort to lead him on.Twice Hashi repeated the movement, and once he came near falling into Frank’s clutch, for Merry made a lightning snap at his wrist and barely missed.Finally Hashi came still nearer. Suddenly he felt a hand close on the back of his neck. Merriwell had caught him before he could prevent it.He knew now that Frank could move with such swiftness that light itself seemed barely faster.Hashi shot his own hand up and tried to secure a hold on Frank’s wrist, with the intention of seeking a certain nerve with his fingers and robbing the American youth of strength in that arm.Frank read his intention and prevented it by his manner of maintaining his hold, at the same time closing on the professor’s arm at the shoulder.Hashi twisted and snapped away barely in time to prevent the American from finding one of those paralyzing nerves.He continued to smile, but he understood that Merriwell was inclined to meet him at his own game.A moment later Frank secured another hold on the Jap. Instead of coming at Hashi, he drew the yellow athlete toward him.Then there was a grapple.“Ah!” cried the spectators.Hashi sought to get one of Frank’s hands in a certain manner. Being baffled, he changed instantly and tried to bring himself into a position of advantage by twisting Merriwell’s arm behind his back. Again he was defeated.In the meantime Merry had continued to seek to secure a hold on the little man, finally obtaining it. They went to their knees together.Hashi broke Frank’s hold. As they came up, the Jap again sought to twist Frank’s arm behind his back. He was prevented in this, and he clasped Merry’s body behind, getting him round the waist. Frank slipped down, reached up and closed his fingers in a lock about the back of Hashi’s neck. Hashi’s waist lock held, but Merry went over, sending the heels ofthe Jap in a half circle through the air. Hashi landed flat on his back, with the American full upon him.It was a clean case of a wrestler’s trick being baffled by another trick, and the Jap was down.A shout went up from the spectators.Fillmore looked astounded and dismayed.But the Jap did not let Frank rise. Instead of that, as Merry was getting up, Hashi caught one of his legs.Fillmore caught his breath. He knew what that meant, and he was satisfied now that Hashi had permitted Frank to bring about the fall in order to obtain this opportunity.Frank seemed warned just in time, for he gave a squirming whirl that brought him round facing in the opposite direction and prevented the Jap from securing the leverage he desired.“Let go of that leg!” he commanded.But he did not wait to see if the Jap obeyed. He did not dare risk it. Instead of waiting, he dropped in such a manner that his free knee was driven into Hashi’s wind.That broke the fellow’s hold.Fillmore saw this and breathed a curse of dismay.Hodge was stirred up.“What did he try to do, Merry?” he palpitated.“Oh, nothing,” smiled Frank. “These jujutsu men never recognize a fair fall. To them it means nothing to be thrown flat on the back. He was trying for another hold, and I had to check him.”The Jap was breathing with difficulty. For somemoments the smile seemed a sickly one, but he maintained it, even as the Japanese soldier smiles in the face of intense suffering and death.Fillmore gave Hashi water and hovered over him.“You failed!” he whispered.“Sufficient is the time, honorable sir,” answered Hashi softly. “I nearly made accomplishment.”“Look out! I’m afraid you led him to suspect. He’ll be on his guard.”“Nothing can save the agile gentleman when I obtain the sufficient hold,” declared the Jap.Merriwell was warmly congratulated by Spaulding and the others.“That’s only the beginning,” he said. “The little man let himself go over that he might get his hold on me. He is recovering, and he’ll be very dangerous after this.”Hashi rose and took his place on the mat.“Will the honorable gentleman athlete again give me the exceeding pleasure?” he invited.Frank stepped out.“The professor has peculiar ideas of pleasure,” laughed Harrow. “I wouldn’t regard it as much sport to have the wind driven out of me in such a manner.”Again the American and the Jap crouched and advanced with the greatest caution. Again Frank finally tried for the neck hold, but this time Hashi avoided it.“Get him! get him!” hissed Fillmore.“I’ll get you some day!” muttered Hodge.Hashi was disappointed because Frank would not attack after the American fashion. Once both secured a hold at the same moment, but instantly both broke,each realizing that the hold of the other was dangerous.They were like crouching panthers.“Get his arm!” mentally cried Fillmore. “If you can’t break his leg, break his arm!”Suddenly there was a mix-up. The movements of the combatants were swift and sudden. They grappled, broke, grappled again, twisted, turned, writhed. Frank saw and baffled each effort on the part of Hashi to get his fingers in contact with some paralyzing nerve. In return the little man repeatedly defeated Merriwell’s strategic moves.Suddenly Hashi went down, catching his arm with a twisting lock about Frank’s right leg near the knee.“He has him!” thought Fillmore. “Now he’ll break the fellow’s leg as if it were a pipestem!”Instantly Frank stooped and seized the shoulder of the Jap, his grip being one of iron as he drove his thumb into a certain spot. Had he not located the spot accurately Hashi would have broken his leg in a twinkling. As it was, he found a nerve that completely paralyzed the yellow man’s whole arm and rendered him helpless to exert the leverage on the imprisoned limb which must have crippled Merry.No cry of pain escaped the vicious little man, but his hold was broken in a twinkling and Frank was free.Merry knew now what had been attempted. The mere warning had not fully proved to him the dastardly purpose of his enemy; but now there was no doubt about it. He laughed aloud.“Now the Japanese whelp gets his medicine!” grated Bart Hodge.He had heard Merriwell laugh like that before, and he knew what usually followed.Frank seized his opponent and lifted him from the floor, giving him a fling that sent him clear of the mat and slam against the nearest wall.One thing practiced by the Japanese is the art of falling. Hashi was jarred, of course, when he collided with the wall, but he fell to the floor and sat up smiling in his usual bland manner.That smile, however, was the mask which concealed the intense rage and chagrin which he felt. He knew now that the American was well up in the art of Japanese self-defense, besides being master of the American style of wrestling.Hashi felt that he would be disgraced if he permitted Frank to defeat him. Besides, he would not earn the five hundred dollars.But the disappointment of the Jap was not equal to that of Fred Fillmore.“Fiends, take him!” whispered the young rascal. “Is he going to let Merriwell do him up?”He had fancied Merriwell’s action in hurling his antagonist against the wall would end the struggle; but vicious hope had new birth in his heart when he beheld the smiling yellow man pick himself up from the floor.“The honorable gentleman is very skillful,” purred Hashi, toddling back to the mat.There was a steely glitter in Frank’s eyes as he regarded the tough, little rascal.“Wait a moment, Hashi,” he commanded.“Respected sir, yours to command,” said the Jap.“I am onto your trick now,” said Frank. “I know what you are trying to do. Jujutsu teaches a man how to break limbs. The hold you had on my leg would have crippled me if I had not moved quickly to prevent it. But a leg or an arm is not the only thing that may be broken by such a method.”“Oh, respected sir——”“You may as well cut out the respected sir! You tried to break my leg. It is no more difficult to break a neck. I warn you to hold up. Don’t try that trick again if you respect your neck!”“That’s the talk, Merry!” cried Hodge.“The honorable gentleman is so greatly suspicious!” murmured Hashi.“Now come ahead,” invited Frank, stepping to the very centre of the mat. “I shall defend myself at any cost to your limbs or life.”“Curse him!” whispered Fillmore.Some of the spectators clapped their hands.“This was to be a friendly trial of skill,” said Maurice Spaulding.“Of course it was!” cried Cutler Priest.Hashi hesitated. For a moment his eyes left Frank. They met the eyes of Fillmore, and there he saw a command for him to go on.“The honorable gentleman is wonderfully skillful,” said the Jap. “I congratulate him upon his excellent skill, and his hand I would shake.”Was it possible that the Jap acknowledged himself beaten?Frank was not duped, although he accepted the hand extended. He was prepared when Hashi instantly tried to obtain the arm lock which would have rendered him helpless.Merry had a grip of steel, and he exerted it suddenly, crushing the fingers of the Jap.Hashi was baffled again. Even though it seemed that the American would take his hand off, the little man did not wholly lose his persistent smile.When he had baffled his antagonist, Frank suddenly changed his method and caught the fellow in a wrestling grip. Together they went to the mat, where Merry obtained a half-Nelson hold.As Hashi felt his head bent under him and realized he must quickly go over upon his back, he flung his feet straight up into the air, and, using his head for a pivot, attempted to spin out of the hold like a top.Merry anticipated that.With his free arm he caught the Jap about the waist and checked the spinning. Then he promptly turned Hashi over flat and fair upon his back.“Great—great work!” cried the spectators.Merriwell was up, cool and unruffled.Fillmore longed to leap out and deal Frank a blow.“No use!” he thought despairingly. “No use! The miserable Jap can’t do it!”Hashi’s smile clung, but it had lost its confidence and self-assurance.“The honorable gentleman has the way in which to mix wrestling and jujutsu,” he said, as he rose. “In this excellent manner he is using two arts against one.It is not an eminently fair test of one competent style against another.”“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Spaulding. “He confesses himself beaten!”“I beg the august gentleman’s respectful pardon,” said the yellow man. “I was humbly seeking to elucidate why I have the unfortunate success encountered.”Then he again stepped toward Merry.“Why, he’s the kind that never gets enough!” exclaimed Raymond Harrow.“What do you think about your Japanese wizard, Fillmore?” asked one of the witnesses.Fred attempted to answer, but his voice was husky and his words choked in his throat.One more lightning trick did Hashi attempt. He did it without apparent preparation or thought, hoping this change of method might take Frank off his guard.Frank baffled the attempt, seeming to read the Jap’s very thoughts. He went in for another wrestling hold, but Hashi slipped away. The Jap tried to work Frank’s movement by securing a hold that would turn it against Merry; but this trial again brought about his undoing. Merry secured a hold and hurled Hashi over his head.The Jap fell sprawling on the mat, sat up, rose quickly, bowed low and confessed:“One art against two is not sufficient. The wrestler alone I will humbly undertake to defeat; but the wrestler who has also the accomplishment of jujutsu is indeed too much.”Fillmore’s scheme had failed.Now Frank turned on the rascal.“Next time you hire a tool to break my leg he’ll not escape as easily as this one has,” he said.“What do you mean?” snarled Fred, his face pale.“I mean what you heard me say. I was warned. You thought I had been led blindly into the trap. Fellow, you had better have a care! If you annoy me further I’ll not bother with your tools, but I’ll reach for the fountain head of the trouble. That is all I have to say.”“You’re crazy!” sneered Fillmore.But suddenly he found himself looked on with aversion by Merriwell’s companions, who began to mutter among themselves. Their black looks and ominous behavior alarmed him.“I believe the fools are going to jump on me!” he thought.Fear overcame him, and he made haste to get out of the room and the building, leaving Hashi to follow when he would.Although he had not broken Frank Merriwell’s leg, Hashi had the five hundred dollars.
Stripped to sleeveless sweaters, trousers and light rubber-soled shoes, Frank and the Jap faced each other on the huge mat spread on the floor of a seldom-used room above the gymnasium.
The spectators stood around, feeling a thrill of excitement. One and all they seemed to anticipate something unusual.
Hashi still smiled. Frank was calm and grave.
Fred Fillmore found it difficult to control his features to hide an expression of eager satisfaction and malignance.
“This is my time to triumph!” he thought. “Merriwell walked into the trap like a lamb going to the slaughter. While he is recovering from a broken leg I’ll be perfecting my plans to steal Inza Burrage from him. I’m bound to have her! She shall be mine!”
Hodge was watching Fillmore, and the expression on the fellow’s face made Bart long to hit him.
“Is the honorable gentleman quite prepared?” gently inquired Hashi.
“Quite,” nodded Merry.
They crouched and moved toward each other. Hashi held himself on the alert, waiting and expecting his opponent to attack with a rush.
It is a feature of jujutsu to seem to yield before the first rush of the enemy, but to turn the attack to the undoing of the assailant, actually causing him to usehis own force to aid in his defeat. Therefore Hashi was a bit disappointed when Merry failed to come after him in the style of most American wrestlers.
“I must provoke him to attack,” thought the Jap.
Aloud he observed:
“The honorable gentleman seems exceedingly overcome by vastly much timidness.”
It was now Frank’s turn to smile.
“I haven’t observed you making any headlong plunge,” he retorted.
“I would humbly refrain from alarming you greatly more, discreet sir,” said Hashi.
“That is indeed very considerate of you.”
“Well, well!” cried Fillmore, with a mocking intonation; “I do believe Merriwell is frightened!”
“I don’t see the professor displaying amazing courage about coming to a clinch,” laughed Spaulding.
“That’s his style.”
“Perhaps it’s Merriwell’s style.”
Frank and Hashi circled slowly. At last, tired of waiting, the Jap reached out swiftly as if to get a sudden hold on Frank; but he drew back instantly and waited again.
Merry knew it was an effort to lead him on.
Twice Hashi repeated the movement, and once he came near falling into Frank’s clutch, for Merry made a lightning snap at his wrist and barely missed.
Finally Hashi came still nearer. Suddenly he felt a hand close on the back of his neck. Merriwell had caught him before he could prevent it.
He knew now that Frank could move with such swiftness that light itself seemed barely faster.
Hashi shot his own hand up and tried to secure a hold on Frank’s wrist, with the intention of seeking a certain nerve with his fingers and robbing the American youth of strength in that arm.
Frank read his intention and prevented it by his manner of maintaining his hold, at the same time closing on the professor’s arm at the shoulder.
Hashi twisted and snapped away barely in time to prevent the American from finding one of those paralyzing nerves.
He continued to smile, but he understood that Merriwell was inclined to meet him at his own game.
A moment later Frank secured another hold on the Jap. Instead of coming at Hashi, he drew the yellow athlete toward him.
Then there was a grapple.
“Ah!” cried the spectators.
Hashi sought to get one of Frank’s hands in a certain manner. Being baffled, he changed instantly and tried to bring himself into a position of advantage by twisting Merriwell’s arm behind his back. Again he was defeated.
In the meantime Merry had continued to seek to secure a hold on the little man, finally obtaining it. They went to their knees together.
Hashi broke Frank’s hold. As they came up, the Jap again sought to twist Frank’s arm behind his back. He was prevented in this, and he clasped Merry’s body behind, getting him round the waist. Frank slipped down, reached up and closed his fingers in a lock about the back of Hashi’s neck. Hashi’s waist lock held, but Merry went over, sending the heels ofthe Jap in a half circle through the air. Hashi landed flat on his back, with the American full upon him.
It was a clean case of a wrestler’s trick being baffled by another trick, and the Jap was down.
A shout went up from the spectators.
Fillmore looked astounded and dismayed.
But the Jap did not let Frank rise. Instead of that, as Merry was getting up, Hashi caught one of his legs.
Fillmore caught his breath. He knew what that meant, and he was satisfied now that Hashi had permitted Frank to bring about the fall in order to obtain this opportunity.
Frank seemed warned just in time, for he gave a squirming whirl that brought him round facing in the opposite direction and prevented the Jap from securing the leverage he desired.
“Let go of that leg!” he commanded.
But he did not wait to see if the Jap obeyed. He did not dare risk it. Instead of waiting, he dropped in such a manner that his free knee was driven into Hashi’s wind.
That broke the fellow’s hold.
Fillmore saw this and breathed a curse of dismay.
Hodge was stirred up.
“What did he try to do, Merry?” he palpitated.
“Oh, nothing,” smiled Frank. “These jujutsu men never recognize a fair fall. To them it means nothing to be thrown flat on the back. He was trying for another hold, and I had to check him.”
The Jap was breathing with difficulty. For somemoments the smile seemed a sickly one, but he maintained it, even as the Japanese soldier smiles in the face of intense suffering and death.
Fillmore gave Hashi water and hovered over him.
“You failed!” he whispered.
“Sufficient is the time, honorable sir,” answered Hashi softly. “I nearly made accomplishment.”
“Look out! I’m afraid you led him to suspect. He’ll be on his guard.”
“Nothing can save the agile gentleman when I obtain the sufficient hold,” declared the Jap.
Merriwell was warmly congratulated by Spaulding and the others.
“That’s only the beginning,” he said. “The little man let himself go over that he might get his hold on me. He is recovering, and he’ll be very dangerous after this.”
Hashi rose and took his place on the mat.
“Will the honorable gentleman athlete again give me the exceeding pleasure?” he invited.
Frank stepped out.
“The professor has peculiar ideas of pleasure,” laughed Harrow. “I wouldn’t regard it as much sport to have the wind driven out of me in such a manner.”
Again the American and the Jap crouched and advanced with the greatest caution. Again Frank finally tried for the neck hold, but this time Hashi avoided it.
“Get him! get him!” hissed Fillmore.
“I’ll get you some day!” muttered Hodge.
Hashi was disappointed because Frank would not attack after the American fashion. Once both secured a hold at the same moment, but instantly both broke,each realizing that the hold of the other was dangerous.
They were like crouching panthers.
“Get his arm!” mentally cried Fillmore. “If you can’t break his leg, break his arm!”
Suddenly there was a mix-up. The movements of the combatants were swift and sudden. They grappled, broke, grappled again, twisted, turned, writhed. Frank saw and baffled each effort on the part of Hashi to get his fingers in contact with some paralyzing nerve. In return the little man repeatedly defeated Merriwell’s strategic moves.
Suddenly Hashi went down, catching his arm with a twisting lock about Frank’s right leg near the knee.
“He has him!” thought Fillmore. “Now he’ll break the fellow’s leg as if it were a pipestem!”
Instantly Frank stooped and seized the shoulder of the Jap, his grip being one of iron as he drove his thumb into a certain spot. Had he not located the spot accurately Hashi would have broken his leg in a twinkling. As it was, he found a nerve that completely paralyzed the yellow man’s whole arm and rendered him helpless to exert the leverage on the imprisoned limb which must have crippled Merry.
No cry of pain escaped the vicious little man, but his hold was broken in a twinkling and Frank was free.
Merry knew now what had been attempted. The mere warning had not fully proved to him the dastardly purpose of his enemy; but now there was no doubt about it. He laughed aloud.
“Now the Japanese whelp gets his medicine!” grated Bart Hodge.
He had heard Merriwell laugh like that before, and he knew what usually followed.
Frank seized his opponent and lifted him from the floor, giving him a fling that sent him clear of the mat and slam against the nearest wall.
One thing practiced by the Japanese is the art of falling. Hashi was jarred, of course, when he collided with the wall, but he fell to the floor and sat up smiling in his usual bland manner.
That smile, however, was the mask which concealed the intense rage and chagrin which he felt. He knew now that the American was well up in the art of Japanese self-defense, besides being master of the American style of wrestling.
Hashi felt that he would be disgraced if he permitted Frank to defeat him. Besides, he would not earn the five hundred dollars.
But the disappointment of the Jap was not equal to that of Fred Fillmore.
“Fiends, take him!” whispered the young rascal. “Is he going to let Merriwell do him up?”
He had fancied Merriwell’s action in hurling his antagonist against the wall would end the struggle; but vicious hope had new birth in his heart when he beheld the smiling yellow man pick himself up from the floor.
“The honorable gentleman is very skillful,” purred Hashi, toddling back to the mat.
There was a steely glitter in Frank’s eyes as he regarded the tough, little rascal.
“Wait a moment, Hashi,” he commanded.
“Respected sir, yours to command,” said the Jap.
“I am onto your trick now,” said Frank. “I know what you are trying to do. Jujutsu teaches a man how to break limbs. The hold you had on my leg would have crippled me if I had not moved quickly to prevent it. But a leg or an arm is not the only thing that may be broken by such a method.”
“Oh, respected sir——”
“You may as well cut out the respected sir! You tried to break my leg. It is no more difficult to break a neck. I warn you to hold up. Don’t try that trick again if you respect your neck!”
“That’s the talk, Merry!” cried Hodge.
“The honorable gentleman is so greatly suspicious!” murmured Hashi.
“Now come ahead,” invited Frank, stepping to the very centre of the mat. “I shall defend myself at any cost to your limbs or life.”
“Curse him!” whispered Fillmore.
Some of the spectators clapped their hands.
“This was to be a friendly trial of skill,” said Maurice Spaulding.
“Of course it was!” cried Cutler Priest.
Hashi hesitated. For a moment his eyes left Frank. They met the eyes of Fillmore, and there he saw a command for him to go on.
“The honorable gentleman is wonderfully skillful,” said the Jap. “I congratulate him upon his excellent skill, and his hand I would shake.”
Was it possible that the Jap acknowledged himself beaten?
Frank was not duped, although he accepted the hand extended. He was prepared when Hashi instantly tried to obtain the arm lock which would have rendered him helpless.
Merry had a grip of steel, and he exerted it suddenly, crushing the fingers of the Jap.
Hashi was baffled again. Even though it seemed that the American would take his hand off, the little man did not wholly lose his persistent smile.
When he had baffled his antagonist, Frank suddenly changed his method and caught the fellow in a wrestling grip. Together they went to the mat, where Merry obtained a half-Nelson hold.
As Hashi felt his head bent under him and realized he must quickly go over upon his back, he flung his feet straight up into the air, and, using his head for a pivot, attempted to spin out of the hold like a top.
Merry anticipated that.
With his free arm he caught the Jap about the waist and checked the spinning. Then he promptly turned Hashi over flat and fair upon his back.
“Great—great work!” cried the spectators.
Merriwell was up, cool and unruffled.
Fillmore longed to leap out and deal Frank a blow.
“No use!” he thought despairingly. “No use! The miserable Jap can’t do it!”
Hashi’s smile clung, but it had lost its confidence and self-assurance.
“The honorable gentleman has the way in which to mix wrestling and jujutsu,” he said, as he rose. “In this excellent manner he is using two arts against one.It is not an eminently fair test of one competent style against another.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Spaulding. “He confesses himself beaten!”
“I beg the august gentleman’s respectful pardon,” said the yellow man. “I was humbly seeking to elucidate why I have the unfortunate success encountered.”
Then he again stepped toward Merry.
“Why, he’s the kind that never gets enough!” exclaimed Raymond Harrow.
“What do you think about your Japanese wizard, Fillmore?” asked one of the witnesses.
Fred attempted to answer, but his voice was husky and his words choked in his throat.
One more lightning trick did Hashi attempt. He did it without apparent preparation or thought, hoping this change of method might take Frank off his guard.
Frank baffled the attempt, seeming to read the Jap’s very thoughts. He went in for another wrestling hold, but Hashi slipped away. The Jap tried to work Frank’s movement by securing a hold that would turn it against Merry; but this trial again brought about his undoing. Merry secured a hold and hurled Hashi over his head.
The Jap fell sprawling on the mat, sat up, rose quickly, bowed low and confessed:
“One art against two is not sufficient. The wrestler alone I will humbly undertake to defeat; but the wrestler who has also the accomplishment of jujutsu is indeed too much.”
Fillmore’s scheme had failed.
Now Frank turned on the rascal.
“Next time you hire a tool to break my leg he’ll not escape as easily as this one has,” he said.
“What do you mean?” snarled Fred, his face pale.
“I mean what you heard me say. I was warned. You thought I had been led blindly into the trap. Fellow, you had better have a care! If you annoy me further I’ll not bother with your tools, but I’ll reach for the fountain head of the trouble. That is all I have to say.”
“You’re crazy!” sneered Fillmore.
But suddenly he found himself looked on with aversion by Merriwell’s companions, who began to mutter among themselves. Their black looks and ominous behavior alarmed him.
“I believe the fools are going to jump on me!” he thought.
Fear overcame him, and he made haste to get out of the room and the building, leaving Hashi to follow when he would.
Although he had not broken Frank Merriwell’s leg, Hashi had the five hundred dollars.