This time, trembling with excitement and dread lest at any moment the blacks might miss them, Jack closed his teeth with all his might upon the narrow portion of the blade awkwardly offered to him, held on at the risk of the ivory breaking, and Ned drew the handle away slowly, with the result that the strength of the spring was mastered, the knife half opened, and this done the rest was easy.
Ned paused for a few moments to wrench his head round and gaze up the slope toward the savages’ camp, then turning to Jack he laid the blade flat upon the back of his hand, and forced it under the thin cane which bound his wrists, having hard work to do it in his hampered position without cutting his companion’s hands.
“Now, sir,” he whispered, “I’ll turn the blade edge outwards, and you must work yourself up and down against it. Try now.”
Jack made an effort, which hurt his wrist horribly without doing the slightest good.
“That won’t do, sir,” whispered Ned. “I can’t help you half so much as by holding still. Now try again, not jigging as you did before, but giving yourself a regular see-saw sort of swing. Now then ’fore they wake. Off you go.”
It was agony. The back of the knife-blade seemed to be cutting bluntly down upon his wrist-bones, but setting his teeth hard, Jack forced himself downward and drew back.
“That’s the sort, sir. Don’t do much, but it’s doing something. If I had my hands free I could soon cut the withes. Keep it up.”
Setting his teeth harder, Jack kept on the sawing movement, apparently without avail, but the pain grew less as the edge of the blade cut into the cane.
“It’s of no use, Ned,” whispered the lad. “Let’s try to undo the knots with our teeth. I’ll try on yours first.”
“You keep on sawing,” said the man in a low growl, and the words came so fiercely that Jack involuntarily obeyed, and the next minute, to his great surprise, there was a faint cracking sound; one strand of the cane band was through, and the rest uncurled like a freed spring.