When he again opened his eyes, a smell that was something like that of dead and rotting flower blossoms filled Dave Dawson's nose, and seemed to clog up his throat. For several seconds he stared bewildered at a world of murky shadows. Then suddenly he realized that he was in some kind of a room, and that he was lying on his side on the floor of that room. And the air he was breathing was heavy with the smell of rotting sweet things. Like perfume that had turned bad. Or still more like cheap perfume mixed with a dash or two of ether. It stung his nose, and his eyes, and made him gag.

"What the heck?" he heard his own voice mumble.

The sound of his own mumbling voice gave him the idea to sit up and take immediate stock of his crazy, cockeyed surroundings. But the idea remained just an idea. That is to say, he soon found that he could not sit up. And he couldn't because his wrists were bound tightly behind his back. His ankles were bound tightly, too. And a rope connecting his bound wrists and ankles was drawn so taut that the only movement he could make was to roll over on his face. And that didn't do any good because then he couldn't see anything. And the strain on his wrists and ankles made white dots of pain dance about in front of his eyes.

Gasping and panting for breath, he managed to flop back onto his other side. But for a couple of minutes he could see nothing but blurs because of the dancing white spots. Then as his vision cleared he saw the huddled form of Freddy Farmer on the floor not four feet from him. Freddy was trussed up, too, and his eyes were closed tight as though in deep sleep. A terrible fear gripped Dawson as he stared at his flying pal, and then his heart began to beat again when he saw that Freddy was breathing regularly.

Over beyond Freddy on the opposite wall was a small window. But it was so high up from the floor that it was more like a skylight. And when Dawson twisted his head back so that he could look up at it, he saw four pale squares of light. The pale light from outside seeped down through the four small panes of glass that made up the window.

"Dawn," he muttered. "It must be close to dawn, or else that glass is plenty dirty. I'll ... Dawn? But it was early evening when it happened. Well, not later than nine o'clock, anyway. Yeah! Freddy disappeared, and then yelled. I went hunting for him, and ... bingo! I got clouted, and there was a funny smell. Something like this, and ..."

He cut off the rest with a groan and closed his stinging eyes tight as he tried to force his brain back in memory and recall what else had followed. But he couldn't remember anything else. Yes, a sort of hissing sound, that dank, musty smell, and then ... and then the lights had gone out for him.

He groaned again, opened his eyes and looked at Freddy Farmer. He tried for a moment or two to wiggle and edge closer, but the white pain in his wrists and ankles made him give it up.

"Freddy, Freddy!" he called out softly. "Can you hear me, Freddy? Open your eyes, pal. This is Dave. Can you hear me, Freddy?"

Young Farmer's eyelids seemed to flutter a bit, but they did not open immediately. A tremor ran down the youth's body. Dave saw him quiver, and then heard him sigh. Then presently young Farmer opened his eyes, and just gaped blankly.

"Freddy, it's Dave!" Dawson said sharply. "How are you, Freddy? Okay, pal? Say something, won't you?"

The English-born air ace continued to stare blank-eyed for a moment or two longer. Then he blinked rapidly, and frowned.

"What's the matter, Dave?" he asked. "Where are we? What are we...? Ouch! I say, what the heck is up? I can't move. My feet and hands are tied! I say!"

"Me, too, Freddy," Dawson said quickly, and tried to grin but without much success. "But I don't know any of the answers. I just woke up. Look, what happened to you last night?"

"To me, last night?" young Farmer murmured. Then in a startled voice. "Last night, you said? You mean...? I mean, this isn't last night? I mean, this isn't tonight. I ... Oh, good grief, what do I mean?"

"Take it easy, son, take it easy," Dave soothed him. "Right now it's early dawn, I think. Last night you suddenly faded out of the picture. We'd parked the jeep at Kahuku Point beach and were taking a stroll. Remember? You disappeared, called out to me, and I ran smack into a kick in the face, or something. Why did you call out? Where had you gone, and why?"

Freddy Farmer scowled, and slowly moved his head from side to side in a bewildered gesture. Then suddenly he stiffened, and his eyes flew open wide.

"Good gosh, yes, Dave!" he gasped. "It was the queerest thing. Happened so suddenly that I don't even know now exactly what did happen. Something got me from behind, quick as a wink. Around the throat and over the nose and mouth. I swear I smelled ether, but I'm not sure. Everything sort of went spinning like, and black as pitch. Later I seemed to come to. I was being carried by a couple of chaps. Maybe there were more than just a couple. Anyway, I guess it was instinct, I knew that something was wrong. I remember now yelling to you. And then everything went black and smelly again. But where are we, and how in the world did we get here?"

"And I still don't know the answers, Freddy," Dawson said to him. "As I said, I came running when I heard you yell, and the next thing I knew I was falling down a great big black hole full of hissing sound, and a funny smell. Like the smell that's in the air now. Boy! if I could only get a lungful of fresh clean air then maybe I could think straight for a second or so. The old brain is whirling so fast it's going to burn out a bearing sure as shooting. But are you hurt, or wounded, or anything, Freddy?"

"Nope," the other replied. "Nothing wrong with me except that I'm trussed up like a blooming pig ready for roasting. I wonder what it all means? Have you heard any sounds, or anything like that?"

Before Dawson could so much as open his mouth to say, "No," they both heard the drone of aircraft engines up in the air outside. They listened to the sound grow louder and louder until they could tell that the aircraft was directly over them. Then it grew fainter and fainter and presently died away altogether. Neither of them spoke. It was like a mockery of fate to be a couple of air pilots trussed up helpless on the dirty floor of some strange and smelly room listening to an airplane thunder by outside.

"Well, that was a Yank plane, anyway," Dawson eventually grunted, as though that fact would help them a little. "I could tell."

"So could I," Freddy Farmer said in a wistful tone. Then, "I'm afraid we've been a couple of blasted fools again, Dave. Blind, thoughtless, stupid fools. And after the warning Vice-Admiral Stone gave us."

"You mean that doom caught up with a couple of doomed guys?" Dawson asked. "But that's nuts, Freddy!"

"Nuts?" young Farmer came back sharply. "Why, you were the one who had the hunch that our Japrat friend probably could communicate with his pals in the Islands. So it was ..."

"I know what I said," Dave growled. "But if it was that, we wouldn't be here. Alive, I mean. We'd be dead. Why kidnap us in the dark of night, and at a lonely spot like the one where we were? Why not just give us both the works, and be done with it? With us dead they haven't a single thing to fear about that Nazi spy being identified. Or ... oh my gosh!"

"What, Dave?" Freddy Farmer asked quickly when Dawson let out the sudden exclamation and then lapsed into a sort of breathless silence.

"Nothing, nothing, Freddy," Dave replied. "Let's skip it. I wonder where the heck we are, anyway. Sure is a mixed-up business, isn't it? I wonder ..."

"Here, none of that, Dave!" young Farmer snapped. "I can see through you like glass, old thing. You suddenly thought of something that gave you a fair jolt. You want to spare me by not telling me. I want none of that sort of thing, and you know it, Dave. So come on. Out with it, old chap. What was the sudden thought?"

"Oh, look, Freddy, let's just skip it and ..."

"Dave!" Freddy cut him off again. "That's not being quite fair to your pal, don't you think, what?"

Dawson didn't reply for a long moment. He struggled with himself, and then sighed softly.

"Okay, Freddy," he said slowly. "But of course it's a crazy, screwy thought. Doesn't make any sense at all. Really, to tell the truth, it ..."

"Just tell it to me, Dave," young Farmer said quietly, and fixed his eyes on Dawson's face.

"That maybe this is it, Freddy," Dawson finally said, and gave a jerk of his head to include the room in which they were bound prisoners. "Maybe they didn't want to leave any signs, such as a couple of bodies, and so forth. Maybe they decided that it was best for you and me just to disappear, and ... and here we are. But I tell you, pal, it's really a screwy thought. Absolutely absurd. You shouldn't have forced me, kid."

Freddy Farmer didn't say anything when Dawson finished speaking. He closed his eyes for a moment, licked his lips, and then opened his eyes and appeared to stare thoughtfully into space. Dawson started to speak again, but Freddy smiled a little and shook his head.

"That's all right, Dave," he said quietly. "Perhaps you are right, and then again, perhaps you are wrong. And I do think you're wrong. As I look at it they simply wouldn't take the chance."

"Take what chance?" Dawson demanded.

"That we'd escape from this place, wherever it is," the English-born air ace replied. "They'd kill us and leave us here, never to be found perhaps. They wouldn't let us go out the slow way, knowing that we might possibly escape by some miracle. They'd make sure, don't you see?"

"Yeah, I get your point, Freddy," Dave said with a nod. Then, grinning broadly, he added, "Well, didn't I just get through saying that it was probably a cockeyed thought?"

"But I wonder why they want to keep us alive?" Freddy Farmer murmured as though he were too busy with his own thoughts to hear Dawson's question.

In the next moment, though, all conversation between them ceased abruptly. A door opened and two shadowy figures came into the room. At the sound of the latch and the soft footsteps that followed immediately, Dawson screwed his head around, fully expecting to see the leering, buck-toothed face of some son of Nippon. Neither of the two figures who came into the room were Japanese. At any rate they certainly didn't look like Japanese. They looked more like a couple of ragged Hawaiians, although their cheek bones were unusually high. And when Dawson took a second look at their faces he was instantly struck with the impression that both were a trifle scared. One of them carried a tray of food, while the other carried a snub-nosed automatic, and acted as though he expected the thing to blow up almost any second. The one with the tray of food placed it on the floor, and then, while the other stood guard with his "nervous" gun, he moved around by Dawson's head, and motioned for the Yank air ace to roll over on his stomach. Dawson hesitated an instant and then did as signalled. Hands fumbled with the rope about his wrists, and presently his half numbed wrists were free. He pulled them down by his sides, and with his head turned that way he watched the man free Freddy Farmer's wrists, also. That done, the brown-skinned man leaped quickly backward and pushed the tray of food between them with one bare foot.

"Food," he said in a strange husky voice. "You eat. You eat food."

Not all of the circulation had returned to Dawson's wrists and his arms from finger tips to shoulder sockets felt stabbed by a billion needles as he shifted over on his back, and pushed himself up to a sitting position. He heard Freddy Farmer gasp as he, too, sat up. He shot a quick glance at his English-born pal, saw that he was suffering the same kind of pain, and then looked at the food. It was of the Hawaiian variety and didn't look bad at all. His prime interest at the moment, however, was not in food, regardless of the growling that had started up in his stomach. He looked at the two raggedly clad brown men, of very uncertain origin no doubt. They returned his look with all the intelligence of a bottle fly showing in their high cheek-boned faces.

"Where are we?" Dawson asked, and smiled at them.

Like a rehearsed act the two brown men shook their heads, and pointed long forefingers at the tray of food.

"You eat," they said in the same breath.

Dawson shook his head, smiled again, and made a gesture with his tingling right arm that included the house where they were.

"What place is this?" he said slowly, spacing his words. "Where is boss man? Me make talk with boss fella, yes. You savvy?"

The two brown men, with jet black hair, shook their heads as one again and pointed.

"Okay, skip it!" Dawson said quickly. "I get the idea. Me eat. Okay, me eat."

He turned to the tray of food, picked up something that looked like a messy salad and stuffed it into his mouth. It tasted surprisingly good. In fact, it tasted exactly like a highly spiced salad.

"Not bad," he grunted.

"Definitely good," Freddy Farmer said with his mouth full. "Which of course adds to the crazy mystery. Why do the blighters feed us, I'd like to know?"

"And I'd like to know who they are!" Dawson said with emphasis. Then, reaching out his hand, he said, "Wonder what this stuff is in this cup? Looks like pineapple juice. I ... well, what do you know, it is pineapple juice! But good, too!"

"Why wouldn't it be pineapple juice?" Freddy Farmer murmured as he drank from the other cup. "We're in the Hawaiian Islands, aren't we? And I suppose this other stuff is what they call poi, what?"

"Search me," Dawson said with a shrug, "It's not bad, but I'd rather have a nice juicy steak with French fries, and ..."

"Dave, stop!" Freddy Farmer groaned, and made an anguished grimace. "That's definitely torture to me, and you know it. Besides, you're not thinking of that sort of thing at all. I wish we could get these two beggars to talk. I fancy they look a bit frightened to me."

"Check," Dave said, and looked at the two brown men, who stood there like a couple of wooden Indians. "And mostly too frightened to talk. I think ..."

Dawson didn't continue to say what he thought. The air outside wherever they were suddenly became filled with the roar of many planes. He judged that there were a good fifty or more planes up there in the sky. He impulsively threw back his head and stared up at the high window. The light seeping down through was considerably less pale than it had been before, but the glass was still too dirty and covered with cobwebs for him to see the sky above.

"Yank planes," he said, lowering his gaze to the two brown men. "I wonder if it's the welcome escort for the carrier force. I ... Oh-oh! Take a look, Freddy! Our brown friends are scared of planes, too."

And it was seemingly true. The two brown men were virtually cringing back, and their jet black eyes were flitting from their prisoners to the high window, and back again. Their actions suddenly filled Dawson's brain with a mad idea.

"Bombs!" he suddenly shouted at the top of his voice. "Get out of here, everybody!"

The two brown men jumped as though they had been shot, and their faces turned a milky chocolate with fear. They both shivered violently, and then one, the taller of the two, gasped something in a tongue Dawson had never heard. Both of them spun around and leaped frantically toward the door. They jerked open the door and went through it like a couple of brown streaks of lightning.

Wild hope leaped up in Dawson, but it lived for no more than three or four seconds. From beyond the open door came snarls like those of a trapped and wounded tiger. Almost instantly the snarls were followed by the unmistakable thuds of something crashing against human flesh. Back into the room came the two brown men, like a couple of acrobats doing back flips. They both hit the floor and went slithering across it to bang up against the opposite wall. In a crazy, abstract sort of way Dawson noticed that the one holding the gun still clung to it.

Then Dawson took his eyes off the two and looked toward the door opening. The door had been flung wide, and standing framed in it was a giant figure. A death giant, no less, for he was unmistakably Japanese. He was positively huge, but he was Jap from the top of his close-shaven head all the way down to his splayed-toed feet. A savage leer twisted his thick lips back over his buck teeth. And in the slits that were his eyes was a fiendish gleam that made Dawson swallow in spite of himself, and his icy heart start downward like an express elevator.

For a long moment the two air aces locked eyes with the giant figure. And then the Jap's shoulders shook with silent mirth.

"Yes, it is very amusing to scare chickens, and watch them flee," he said in halting English, and threw a look of scorn at the two brown men cringing on the floor over by the far wall. "But we Japanese are not chickens. We are masters. All others are the chickens. We ... do this!"

The Jap suddenly spit out the last, and with his big yellowish brown hands he went through the motions of slapping a chicken down on the block and chopping off its head. Freddy Farmer gasped in spite of himself. The Jap heard him, burned him with his eyes, and once again his huge shoulders shook with silent mirth.

"You do not like to lose your head and neck, Captain Farmer?" he said, and almost pleasantly, too. "Then you were a fool to come to Oahu. But you are a fool in many things. Both of you are fools! You will both agree, as you die!"