While the two bronze-colored guards stood holding him, Mr. Pike rapidly took stock of his accomplishments, and formulated a program.  With a sudden twist he cleared himself, sprang away from the two, and jumped behind a tree.  One soldier started to the right of the tree and the other to the left, so as to close in upon him and retake him.  This was what he wanted, for he had them “spread,” and could deal with them singly.

He used the Donovan tactics on the first guard, and they worked out with shameful ease.  When the soldier saw the left coming for the pit of his stomach, he crouched and hugged himself, thereby extending his jaw so that it waited there with the sun shining on it until the young man’s right swing came across and changed the middle of the afternoon to midnight.  Number one was lying in profound slumber when Alumnus Pike turned to greet number two.

The second soldier, having witnessed the feat of pugilism, doubled his fists and extended them awkwardly, coming with a rush.  Mr. Pike suddenly squatted and leaned forward, balancing on his finger-tips, until number two was about to fall upon him and crush him, and then he arose with that rigid right shoulder aimed as a catapult.  There was a sound as when the air-brake is disconnected, and number two curled over limply on the ground and made faces in an effort to resume breathing.

Mr. Pike picked up his magazine and put it under his coat.  He buttoned the coat, smiled in a pale, but placid manner at Kalora, who was still immovable with terror, and then he proceeded to vindicate his “prep school” training.  He ran over to the canopy tent, under which the refreshments had been served, pulled out one of the poles and, pointing it ahead of him, ran straight for the wall.

Kalora, watching him, regarded this as a wholly insane proceeding.  Was he going to attempt to poke a hole through a wall three feet thick?

Just as he seemed ready to flatten himself against the stones, he dropped the end of the pole to the ground and shot upward like a rocket.  Kalora saw him give an upward twist and wriggle, fling himself free from the pole and disappear on the other side of the wall, the camera following like the tail of a comet.  As he did so, number two, coming to a sitting posture, began to shriek for reinforcements.  Number one was up on his elbow, regarding the affairs of this world with a dreamy interest.

Fortunately for the Governor-General, the participants in the exploded garden-party had escaped at the very first opportunity.

Count Malagaski, greatly perturbed and almost in a state of collapse over the unhappy affair in the garden, was returning to his apartments when the second surprising episode of the day came to a noisy climax.

He heard the uproar and had the two guards brought before him.  They reported that they had found a stranger in the garb of an infidel seated within the secret garden chatting with the Princess Kalora.  They did not agree in their descriptions of him, but each maintained that the intruder was a very large person of forbidding appearance and terrific strength.