And all the time the bluejacket kept up his deadly assaults on Ned's nerve centers, pressing them deftly and producing excruciating pain. Once Ned wrenched free, and glad he was of the brief spell in which he could take stock of his remaining faculties. It was not that he was winded, or that Kennell was too strong for him. In fact, Ned felt that, well-muscled as the bluejacket was, he had his own system in better fighting shape. The strange methods of Kennell were what worried him. He could not seem to escape the assaults of those hawklike hands. Suddenly a partial explanation of the mystery came to him. Old Tom stepped forward and whispered in his ear, during the brief period in which the two sprang about, eying each other narrowly. "He's jiu-jitsu! Look out!" The full meaning of these words shot into Ned's brain. He recollected now having heard some talk about Kennell's having served in the Far East on his first enlistment. Doubtless it was there that he had learned the subtle, deadly Japanese tricks that he was now exercising on his inexperienced opponent. Gladly would Ned have come to open boxing. In a ring, under proper rules, he was well convinced he could whip the burly Kennell; but under the conditions he now faced, he was by no means certain of his ultimate chance of victory. And now Kennell, with his snakelike glide, closed in again, and Ned seized him without warning in a half-Nelson. Back and back bent the bulky form of the bluejacket till it seemed that his vertebra must crack under the cruel pressure. But to Ned's sickened amazement, the other wriggled from the hold as if he had been some reptile, and there was the work all to be done over again. One fact, however, Ned noticed with satisfaction. If he was becoming exhausted, Kennell was also tiring. His breath was coming sharply, with a hissing intake, like that of a laboring pump. The strain was telling on him. Ned felt, if he could only hold out a little longer, that he would lay his opponent low. But could he last? The contest now was simply a matter of brute endurance plus skill, and in the latter quality Ned felt that Kennell, in his Oriental way, possessed the advantage. Suddenly Ned found himself with a grip on both of Kennell's arms at once. A flood of joy rushed through his veins. He felt certain that few men could resist the pressure he could now exert with his mighty forearms and biceps. "Now where are your jiu-jitsu tricks?" he hissed, as he drew the struggling Kennell nearer and ever nearer with the same resistless force as is exerted by the return plunge of a piston. Kennell, his face white, with an ashy tinge about the corners of his mouth, said nothing, but fought with every ounce of strength within him against the steady pressure that was drawing him closer and closer into Ned's crushing embrace. As Ned had said, "Where were his jiu-jitsu tricks now?"