The Jap was breathing with difficulty. For some moments 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.