“But how on earth did they discover our plan to kidnap Lockyer?” protested Ferriss.
“Search me,” rejoined Gradbarr. “It’s enough for me that they did. If we had not got away when we did, we’d have had the whole hornet’s nest about our ears. As it is, once we’ve got Anderson safely off shore, no one will be the wiser.”
“Right you are,” chuckled Ferriss, seemingly much relieved. “I hope Anderson did a good job on capsizing that boat. It’s important that his friends should imagine that Lockyer is drowned. And, as I was saying——”
But here the voices, which for some seconds had been diminishing in volume, died away altogether. Ned realized that the men had deemed it safe for them all to leave the island and were now on their way to the boat.
“Now if I only could get free of these ropes,” he muttered, “I could do a whole lot of surprising things before they get back.”
The thought that, were it not for his bonds he could be free and at work to save them both, rendered Ned almost desperate. He thrashed about wildly, rolling hither and thither in a frantic attempt to somehow loosen the knots that bound him. But Gradbarr had worked around shipyards too long not to be able to tie a knot that would hold. The ropes did not yield the fraction of an inch. On the contrary, they began to cut into Ned’s flesh and pain him intensely.
All at once, as he rolled, something struck his right hand, and a sharp thrill of pain shot through him.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed, “there’s something sharp in the sand. Feels like I’d given myself a bad cut.”
He lay still, then, and as he gave over his mad threshings about, he could feel the warm blood trickling from the cut that he had received from the sharp object, whatever it was. All at once, however, a thought shot through him that speedily banished all idea of pain or sense of injury.
If that object, lying half-buried in the sand, was sharp enough to cut his hand, surely it was sharp enough to sever his ropes!