And then Yammanato's hand came out from inside his jacket, and it happened. For a brief instant the Hawaiian sun gleamed on the polished blade of a six-inch knife. Then the blade disappeared as the Jap plunged it with both hands to his heart.
"The stinker!" Dawson heard his own voice pant as he raced up to the Jap. "Takes his own life rather than face the music. Just an old Jap custom, I guess."
But Yammanato was not yet quite dead. He stared up at Dawson out of half closed eyes that gleamed with fiendish hate. And then suddenly his lips slid back over his teeth in a sort of wolfish grin, and faintly spoken words came out from between them.
"Good fortune is a fickle woman. I have so spoken."
And with that the Jap died. Dawson saw death steal over the Nip's face. The light in his eyes went out, he stopped breathing, and all that remained was the blood that had once given him life seeping out past the knife blade and staining his white silk shirt a deep red.
"If that was supposed to be an exit line, Yammanato," Dawson grunted down at the dead man, "it was very corny. Plenty corny."
And then as he straightened up, Freddy Farmer and the two soldiers came dashing up, and all three of them started talking at once.
"Hold everything, everybody!" Dave cried, and held up his two hands. "The rat's dead as a doornail, and now all of us have got things to do, but fast!"