That very naturally ended our contest, and it was near to ending our
war-like neighbor as well. During this warfare, which was short or
long, I knew not, my associates, stunned and perhaps fearful, had sat
silent; at least, I neither heard nor saw them. But now, all at once,
over my shoulder I saw both Lafitte and L'Olonnois running in to my
assistance. Each held in hand a bared blade of the samurai, and had I
not shouted out to them to refrain, I have small doubt that in the
most piratical and unsamuraic fashion they mayhap would have
disemboweled my captive; for the old swords were keen as razors, and
my friends were as red of eyesight as myself.
"No! No!" I called to them, even as our victim writhed and roared in
terror. "Drop your weapons--that isn't fair." They obeyed,
shamefacedly and with regret, as I am convinced: for illusion with
them, at times, indeed overleaped the centuries, and they were back in
a time of blood: even as I was in a stone-age wrath for my own part.
"Come here, Jack," I ordered, "and you, too, Jimmy. Do you see how I
have him?"
They agreed. "It's a peach," said Lafitte. "Make him holler!"
"No," I replied, easing off the strain on the wrenched arm, "he has
already 'hollered.'"
"Yes, sure, 'nuff, 'nuff!----ye!" cried our captive, who, now, was in
mortal terror and much contrition, seeing both flesh and blood and
cold steel had all the best of him. "Lemme go!"
"Certainly," I assented; "we did not ask you to come, and do not want
you to stay. But, first, I must use you in a few demonstrations to my
young friends. Jack,"--and I motioned to him with my head--"get behind
him."
Eagerly, his three-cornered gray eyes narrowed, Lafitte skipped back
of my man, and with no word from me he fastened on the other wrist so
suddenly the man had no warning, and with a strong heave of all his
body he doubled that arm up also. Much roaring now, and many
protestations, for when our prisoner began with abuse, we could change
it into supplication by raising his bent arms no more than one inch or
two.
"Now, Jimmy," said I, "go in front of him, and put a thumb in the
corner of his jaw, on each side. Press up until he begs our pardon."
And, faith, my blue-eyed pirate, so far from shuddering at the task,
at last managed to find those certain nerve centers known to all
efficient policemen; and very promptly, the man made signs he would
like to beg the boy's pardon and did so.
"Now, give me that arm, Jack," I resumed calmly, since our subject had
no more fight left in him than a sack of meal. "So. Now go around and
put your thumbs in his eyes--no, not really in his eyes, but in the
middle of the bone above his eyes. So. Now, ask this boy's pardon, or
I'll twist your arms off." And he asked it.