"I was just thinking," Dave said. "Maybe I gave that chump the right tip after all. Maybe he went dancing into his C.O.'s office with the real dope, and got tossed out for passing around such a cockeyed rumor." "Yes, maybe you did at that," Freddy Farmer said soberly. "If Suicide Sasebo does strike at Australia, you will have given the tip-off days in advance, only you didn't know it. But I can't see anything to laugh about!" "Okay, sober sides, I guess you're right," Dawson muttered. "But I sure could do with a good laugh, right about now. I--Oh-oh! I suspect here comes company. Watch it, Freddy. And hang on hard, pal." "Right-o, Dave!" the English youth breathed. "Be right in there with you, old thing." Freddy had hardly got the words off his lips when a key grated in the door lock and the door was kicked open with a crash. Pale light instantly poured into the room, and for a moment Dave and Freddy could see only blurred silhouettes in the companionway outside. Presently their eyes focussed to the change of light and they saw the Jap naval officer and two Jap seamen leering at them. The officer was dressed for flying. In his hand he carried his ever present gun. And each of the sailors carried a coil of thin, tough line. "Turn around, and face the other way!" the Jap officer suddenly hissed at them. For a split second the two youths hesitated as red waves of rebellion surged up in them. But in that same split second they realized that any show of resistance would be the same as putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger. They were as helpless as a couple of caged sparrows, and to do anything about it would be plain, downright stupidity. And so they slowly turned around and suffered themselves to be trussed up hand and foot by the two Jap sailors. And suffer they did, in every sense of the word. It was a joy to those two sons of heathens to have the opportunity to tie up two white men, and they went about their tasks with savage glee. And the Jap officer, standing to one side with his gun ready, took almost as much joy in the operations as they did. For Dawson and Freddy Farmer it was terrible torture to both mind and soul. The loops of the thin, tough line were yanked so tight that they felt like cords of white fire burning into their flesh. Then long before the two Jap seamen had completed the job the feeling of burning bands of white fire disappeared. There was just a dull, throbbing numbness in their legs and in their arms. And as the final fiendish touch the end of the line was looped about their necks, and drawn back tight and tied so that every time they moved their heads the loop bit into their throats and choked off their wind.