The little assailant's heel had come down with trained force on this nerve center.

And, for the moment, Roke was not only in agony but powerless.
The second thing to happen was a deft twist from the imprisoning arm that was wrapped around Hade's throat from behind.

At the pressure, Rodney's groping hand fell away from his pistol pocket, and he himself toppled, powerless, toward the ground, the skilled wrench of the carotid artery and the nerves at the side of the throat paralyzing him with pain.
Roke, rolling impotently on the earth, saw the little fellow swing Hade easily over his shoulder and start for the house.
At the same time, he noted through his semi-delirium of agony that the stalwart men had borne down upon the knot of gaping sailors, and, at pistol-muzzle, had disarmed and handcuffed them.
It was all over in less than, fifteen seconds.

But not before Roke's beach combing wits could come to the aid of his tortured body.

Doubling himself into a muscular ball, he rolled swiftly under the shadow of a sprawling magnolia sapling, crouching among the vine roots which surround it.
There, unobserved, he lay, hugging the dark ground as scientifically as any Seminole, and moving not an eyelash.
From that point of vantage, he saw the dark-clothed men line up their sullen prisoners and march them off to the road, where, a furlong below, the fire revealed the dim outlines of several motor cars.