The Japanese heard it, too, for they looked pretty startled and stared at each other. Then we heard the sound again. It was the toot of an automobile horn. The kind of horn you hear on great big sixty-horse-power cars.
“Whoop!” I yelled. “It ain’t over yet!”
The Japanese were listening, and for a minute my man didn’t hang on to me as tight as he ought to. I gave a sudden wrench and rolled out from under him. Before he could lay hands on me again I was up and running down that hall faster than the man who won the hundred-yard dash in the Olympic games.
I plunged out of the door and threw myself down-stairs. The Japanese was right at my heels, but at the ground floor he stopped, for just across the bridge was a whopping-big car with seven or eight men in it, some white, some Japanese, and just getting out was a little Japanese gentleman with a tall silk hat and a frock-coat.
“Hey!” I yelled. “You’re just in time! Quick!”
In a minute the whole of them were out of the car and hurrying toward me.
CHAPTER XXII
The little Japanese gentleman kept ahead in spite of his silk hat and frock-coat. When he got to me he grabbed me by the arm and shook me.
“Where is he?” he says, his voice shaking with worry and excitement. “Has harm come to him?”
“No,” says I, “but it was comin’ rapid when I saw him last. Bring on your army.”