As the Americans broke into the apartment, Hirata arose partly to his knees and then to his feet, and as he realized their intention, he began to leap up and down shouting lustily:
Jerry's fist found him under the chin, and silenced him. With murmurs of sympathy and anger, the young men cut the bonds of the little girl. She fell limply upon the floor, breathlessly sighing:
"Arigato! Arigato! Arigato!" (Thank you.)
"Hustle. Did you hear that gong! They're summoning the police. Let's beat it."
"And leave her here at his mercy? Nothing doing."
Jerry had lifted the child bodily in his arms, and tossed her across his shoulder. They came out of the house and the gardens through a hue and cry of alarmed attendants and inmates. Hirata had crawled on hands and knees into the main dance hall, and every drum was beating upon the place. Above the beat of the drums came the shrill outcry of Hirata, yelling at the top of his voice:
Through a protecting lane made by his friends, fled Jerry Hammond, the girl upon his shoulder, a chattering, clattering, screeching mob at his heels, out of the gardens and into the dusky streets, under the benignant eye of the Lady Moon, in whose honour a thousand revellers and banquetters were celebrating. Fleet of foot and strong as a young Atlas, Jerry, buoyed up with excitement and rage, fled like the wind before his pursuers, till presently he came to the big brick house, the building of which had been such a source of wonder and amusement to the Japanese, but which had ever afterwards housed white residents sojourning in the city. With one foot Jerry kicked peremptorily upon the door, and a moment later a startled young Japanese butler flung the heavy doors apart, and Jerry rushed in.
She awoke on a great soft bed that seemed to her wondering eyes as large as a room. She was sunk in a veritable nest of down, and, sitting up, she put out a little cautious hand and felt and punched the great pillow to reassure herself as to its reality. There was a vague question trembling in the girl's mind as to whether she might not, in fact, have escaped from Hirata through the same medium as her adored mother, and was now being wafted on a snowy cloud along the eternal road to Nirvanna.