A nod from O’Neil was enough to cause him to snap his reins on the sleepy horses’ backs and in a few more seconds the boatswain’s mate had pushed the obedient Marley in and given a quick order to the mafoo at his side. At breakneck speed the carriage rattled down the macadam road after the slowly dissolving light of the automobile. “Bill, there ain’t the ghost of a show of catching those men,” O’Neil confided, “and if we did we’ve got nothing against them.” O’Neil glanced in amused interest at his friend, whose eyes were fairly bulging with excitement at the thought of an interesting chase after a possible criminal. “I thought by the way you shoved me into this sea-going hack that you’d caught ’em with the goods,” declared the disappointed seaman in an injured tone. “This gent on the box seat will soon be losing them,” the boatswain’s mate declared quietly while he gazed indifferently ahead. The streets were crowded with people, many carrying lighted paper lanterns, and through these the carriage was being driven at a most alarming pace in the endeavor to keep the automobile in sight. O’Neil was correct in his surmise, for presently the carriage slowed to a walk, while the little mafoo had dropped down from his seat by the driver and with many low bows and polite speeches, of which the sailors could only guess the purport, announced that, “The honorable automobile had been swallowed by a dragon, or else vanished into thin air.” At least this would have been the literal translation of the poetic speech if O’Neil and Marley could have correctly translated it into their own language. O’Neil gave a few quick orders in his sailor Japanese to the mafoo, who nodded his smiling face in sign of understanding, and shortly the carriage turned up a less crowded street, while again the little horses were trotting gayly along, the shrill cry of the mafoo being raised periodically in warning the pedestrians plodding slowly along in the middle of the street; for in some streets in Japan sidewalks as yet are unknown luxuries. “Why should that fellow Randall tell us he knew nothing of this Mr. Impey’s affairs?” O’Neil said, more as an introspection than with the hope that Marley could explain. “I am always suspicious of these beachcombers in foreign ports,” the boatswain’s mate added; “they get sort of denationalized after they’ve been living apart from their own people, and they can’t always be trusted to play fair. Randall is an American, that’s a sure thing; you can’t miss the Broadway accent when you hear it so far from home.” While O’Neil was yet carrying on his one-sided conversation the carriage had stopped, and the mafoo was knocking loudly at the door of a Japanese house in one of the less pretentious parts of the city. After the occupants of the house had gone through the usual formula to discover the identity of their unexpected visitors, the door was opened and the two sailors were asked to enter.