nd 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.

When within twenty feet of the Malay, Joe launched himself into the air,
and came down flat on the hard dirt road, as he had done many a time
before when sliding to base.

The Malay, confused by the unlooked-for action, slashed down at him. Had
Joe gone straight toward him, the knife would have been buried in him. But
here again his quickness and the tactics of the ballfield came into play.

Instead of going straight toward his antagonist, his slide had been a
"fall away."

Many a time when sliding to second he had thrown himself this way out of
the reach of the ball, while his extended hand just clutched the bag.

So now, his sinewy arm caught the Malay by the leg, while his body swung
round to the right. Down went the Malay with a crash, his blood-stained
knives clattering on the ground and the next instant Joe was on his back.

His hands closed upon the man's throat with an iron grip.

But there was no more fight left in the would-be murderer. The fall had
jarred and partially stunned him. In an instant Jim had joined Joe, other
men came rushing up; and the danger was over.

T