CHAPTER XV. A PRISONER ON "THE NECK."

But his triumph was just a little bit premature. The bullet from the revolver which Kenworth had so handy had only grazed Ned's cheek. It was the powder grains that had stung him like red-hot points.

The next instant he had recovered from his temporary smoke blindness. As Kenworth jumped for him, Ned sprang at the other. As he did so, his arms shot out and Kenworth's pistol went flying through the air.

Then Ned's strong hands seized the other's wrists with the force of steel handcuffs.

"Confound you!" roared Kenworth. "I didn't get you, did I?"

"Not just yet," panted Ned, "nor for some time to come. You're my prisoner, and if you[Pg 122] don't want to accompany me quietly I'll find means to make you."

Kenworth's reply was an odd one. He uttered a peculiar whistle.

"Now what's that for?" wondered Ned. The question had hardly taken shape in his mind before it was answered, and in a surprising manner.

A loop was thrown over him, he fell forward, and his arms were pinioned by an irresistible force to his side, while a knee pressed into the small of his back.

"Honorable capitan lie quiet? No?" came a voice in his ear.

"It's Saki! Let me go instantly," demanded Ned.

A soft, gurgling laugh was the rejoinder.

"Yes, me Saki all right, honorable capitan; but no can let you go. You lie down lilly while."

With a trick that Ned recognized as one employed by the jiu-jitsu expert he had vanquished in the Far East, the yellow-skinned rascal, as he[Pg 123] spoke, threw Ned sprawling on his back on the sand. Before he could make any defense another loop was slipped over his legs.

"Help!" shouted the boy. "Help! Help!"

There was a chance that his voice might carry to the distant tug.

"Ah! That velly bad to make noise, honorable sir," came Saki's soft voice, and into the struggling lad's mouth was thrust a not over-clean rag.

Effectually silenced now, Ned lay there with blazing eyes. He was beaten, as he realized with a bitter feeling at his heart. Saki and Kenworth were in league, as he had half guessed before.

Kenworth's harsh laugh made him turn his eyes in that worthy's direction.

"Well, how do you like it, eh?" he chuckled. "And you thought you could overreach me and give me orders, did you? Just take that!"

The young ruffian swung a fist crashingly into his helpless victim's face. Again and again he[Pg 124] struck, while Saki stood by, grinning. But suddenly the Jap interfered.

"That plenty for now. We finish our work. Then maybe soon we go way lilly while. Come back night time. Takee honorable capitan nice hotel."

The yellow man broke into a laugh as he spoke, and Kenworth, flushed and vicious from his display of vindictive fury, ceased belaboring Ned. He turned again to his sketch book and spy glasses. Saki took the opportunity to retrieve the pistol, which he handed back to Kenworth.

"Maybe good thing you not better shot," he chuckled, with sinister meaning.

The wind blew his coat aside as he stooped over, and Ned saw that, pinned within it, the Jap had a peculiar decoration. Ned knew what it was. He had seen similar ones in the Far East on the world cruise.

It was the badge denoting that the wearer belonged to Samurai, or warrior caste of Japan. It[Pg 125] also was conferred as a decoration on certain leaders after the Russo-Japanese war.

This Saki, then, was not the ship's steward, as he had been masquerading. Instead, he was a soldier and a veteran, and evidently, too, of high rank.

The whole thing came over Ned in a flash. What a fool he had been not to see through the plot before. The Jap, whose creature Kenworth plainly was, had seized the opportunity of the great naval maneuvers to smuggle himself into the midst of things and secure information about Uncle Sam's fighting ships and war methods that he could have gained in no other way.

The careful maps that Kenworth was drawing were destined to be sent across the Pacific, for what purpose Ned could guess. He turned eyes that blazed slow fires of contempt upon Kenworth.

The latter laughed harshly.

"Thinking you'd like to nail me, aren't you?"[Pg 126] he sneered. "But you'd have to get up a little earlier in the morning to do that. We knew every one of your plans long ago. Saki got them in your cabin——"

The Japanese held up a warning hand.

"No talk any more. Hurry up your map," he urged.

"Pshaw! what harm does it do to tell him a few wholesome truths?" snarled Kenworth. "He's had a swelled head too long altogether. This is the time that he learns he's not as smart as he thinks, by a whole lot."

But he regarded the Jap's hint and addressed no more remarks to Ned. The Dreadnought Boy lay on the hot sands with an ardent sun burning down upon him. But he was careful to give no sign of suffering, although his thirst was beginning to be excessive.

As if he knew this, and delighted in torturing the helpless lad, Saki, from time to time, drew[Pg 127] out an elaborately chased bottle and drank from it with much satisfaction.

"Ah! nice, cool. Veree nice," he would say, smacking his lips and proffering it to Kenworth. "Lemonade, veree good 'Merican drink."

But Ned, without the quiver of an eyelid, lay gazing up into the blazing firmament, although his throat felt as if it were cracking from a drought of centuries.