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 184 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.