“Good Lord,” Sard said, “she is chained and padlocked as well as tied. Never mind, Miss Kingsborough, we will set you free.”
He took the chain, so as to bend the hasp of the padlock, but it was beyond his strength.
“Have you a hairpin, Miss Kingsborough; perhaps I can pick this lock.”
“No,” she said. As he felt along the stake, he found her hair all loose about her. He felt the foot of the stake. It was an unbarked bole of a tree dug deep into the earth and tamped well home. She was chained to it at waist and ankles.
“Catch hold of the stake, Mr. Kingsborough,” Sard said. “We may be able to heave it right out. Sway with us, Miss Kingsborough. We will give the word.”
He and Hilary got their arms about the stake and hove and hove again, with no more result than to make the stake tremble: it was like trying to pull down a growing tree.
“We’ll save you, Margarita,” Hilary kept saying. Sard could not clearly see how they could save her without a cold chisel and a mallet. He struck a match and lit another twist of twine, which burned for nearly forty seconds. He saw Margarita’s white face and great eyes, a strange room of a triangular shape, with a throne at the apex, another bole or tree, a few feet from them, but nothing which could serve as a weapon or a tool.
“Look here,” he said, “I must fetch in the police. Here’s my knife, Mr. Kingsborough. You stay here on guard while I run out and fetch some guardias.”
“They’ll all be bribed,” Hilary said.
“No police can be bribed to this point,” Sard answered. “I’ll have them here in three minutes. Cheer up, Miss Kingsborough.”