"As good as they make them," agreed Joe. "And foxy, too. Remember how he kept that cable cut because he didn't want the folks at Washington to queer his game. He had his work cut out and he wasn't going to be interfered with." "Something like Nelson, when his chief ran up the signal to withdraw," suggested Denton. "He looked at it with that blind eye of his and said he couldn't see it." "Dewey was a good deal like Nelson," said Joe. "Do you remember how he trod on the corns of that German admiral who tried to butt in?" "Do I?" said Jim. "You bet I do." The party met with a warm welcome when they went ashore at Manila. American officers and men from the garrison thronged the dock to meet the veterans of the diamond, whose coming had been widely heralded. Many of them knew the players personally and all knew them by reputation. The baseball teams went to their hotel and after they were comfortably settled in their new quarters, the two chums accompanied by the girls went out for a stroll. But they had not gone far before they were startled by excited shouts a little way ahead of them and saw groups of people scattering right and left in wild panic and confusion. Down the street came a savage figure, running with the speed of a hare, and holding in either hand a knife with which he slashed savagely right and left at all that stood in his way. His eyes were flaming with demoniacal fury, foam stood out upon his lips, and from those lips issued a wailing cry that ended in a shriek: "Amuck! Amuck!" CHAPTER XXII TAKING A CHANCE There was a scream from the frightened girls and a gasp from the young men as they saw this messenger of death bearing down upon them. They knew at a glance what had happened. A Malay, yielding to the insidious mental malady that seems peculiar to his race, had suddenly gone mad and started out to kill. That he himself would inevitably be killed did not deter him for a moment. He wanted to die, but he wanted at the same time to take as many with him as possible. He had made his offering to the infernal gods, had blackened his teeth and anointed his head with cocoa oil, and had started out to slay. With his eyes blazing, his head rolling from side to side like a mad dog, and with that blood-chilling cry coming from his foam-flecked lips, he was like a figure from a nightmare. For a moment the Americans stood rooted to the spot. That instant past, Baseball Joe, as usual, took the lead. "Look after the girls, Jim!" he cried, and started full tilt toward the awful figure that came plunging down the street. Mabel and Clara screamed to him to stop, but he only quickened his pace, running like a deer, as though bent on suicide. The Malay saw him coming, and for a second hesitated. He had seen everyone else scurry from him in fear. What did this man mean by coming to meet him? It was just this instant of indecision upon which Joe had counted, and like a flash he seized it.