Alf thanked him for his kindness and courtesy; but the sampan men had aroused all his pride of race and doggedness, and the problem could not be solved that way.  To sleep out the night on the stones was an acknowledgment of defeat.

“The sampan men refuse to take me out?”

The lieutenant nodded.

“And you refuse to take me out?”

Again the lieutenant nodded.

“Well, then, it’s not in the rules and regulations that you can prevent my taking myself out?”

The lieutenant was perplexed.  “There is no boat,” he said.

“That’s not the question,” Alf proclaimed hotly.  “If I take myself out, everybody’s satisfied and no harm done?”

“Yes; what you say is true,” persisted the puzzled lieutenant.  “But you cannot take yourself out.”

“You just watch me,” was the retort.

Down went Alf’s cap on the office floor.  Right and left he kicked off his low-cut shoes.  Trousers and shirt followed.

“Remember,” he said in ringing tones, “I, as a citizen of the United States, shall hold you, the city of Yokohama, and the government of Japan responsible for those clothes.  Good night.”

He plunged through the doorway, scattering the astounded boatmen to either side, and ran out on the pier.  But they quickly recovered and ran after him, shouting with glee at the new phase the situation had taken on.  It was a night long remembered among the water-folk of Yokohama town.  Straight to the end Alf ran, and, without pause, dived off cleanly and neatly into the water.  He struck out with a lusty, single-overhand stroke till curiosity prompted him to halt for a moment.  Out of the darkness, from where the pier should be, voices were calling to him.

He turned on his back, floated, and listened.

“All right!  All right!” he could distinguish from the babel.  “No pay now; pay bime by!  Come back!  Come back now; pay bime by!”

“No, thank you,” he called back.  “No pay at all.  Good night.”

Then he faced about in order to locate the Annie Mine.  She was fully a mile away, and in the darkness it was no easy task to get her bearings.  First, he settled upon a blaze of lights which he knew nothing but a man-of-war could make.  That must be the United States war-ship Lancaster.  Somewhere to the left and beyond should be the Annie Mine. But to the left he made out three lights close together.  That could not be the schooner.  For the moment he was confused.  He rolled over on his back and shut his eyes, striving to construct a mental picture of the harbor as he had seen it in daytime.  With a snort of satisfaction he rolled back again.  The three lights evidently belonged to the big English tramp steamer.  Therefore the schooner must lie somewhere between the three lights and the Lancaster.  He gazed long and steadily, and there, very dim and low, but at the point he expected, burned a single light—­the anchor-light of the Annie Mine.