“I won’t sign.”
“Don’t be foolish. All we ask you to do is to agree that you won’t make use of the information you have. I admit that you’ve stumbled on some of our secrets, and we can’t afford to turn you loose and have the federal agents about our ears in no time.”
“You must trust me very much. What is to prevent me from signing that paper and then going back on my word?” asked Fenton Hardy curiously.
“We know you too well, Hardy. We know that if you signed that promise you would keep it.”
“Exactly. And that is why I won’t sign it. I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I agreed to any scheme that would protect you.”
“How about your family? Are you doing your duty to them by being so obstinate?”
There was silence for a while. Then Fenton Hardy answered slowly:
“They would rather know that I died doing my duty than have me come back to them as a protector of smugglers and criminals.”
“You have a very high sense of duty,” sneered Snackley. “But perhaps you’ll think better of it after a while. Are you thirsty?”
There was no reply.
“Are you hungry?”
Still no answer.
“You know you are. And you’ll be hungrier and thirstier before we are through with you. We’ll put food and water in your sight but you won’t be able to reach it. You’ll die of thirst and starvation—unless you sign that paper.”
“I’ll never sign it.”
“All right. Come on, men. We’ll leave him to himself and give him time to think about it.”
Footsteps resounded as Snackley and the others began to leave the room, and finally they died away and a door banged.
Fenton Hardy was left alone.
Joe made a sudden move toward the door, but Frank restrained him.
“Not just yet,” he cautioned. “They may have left someone to guard him.”
So the boys waited, listening intently at the door.
But there were no further sounds from within the room. At length, satisfied that his father had indeed been left alone, Frank fumbled for the latch of the door.
Noiselessly, he managed to open it. He pressed in on the door until it was open about an inch, then he peeped through the aperture.
He found himself on the threshold of a sort of cellar, a damp and mouldy chamber, of about the same size as the storage room in the heart of the cliff, with the difference that whereas the first room was a cave in the rock, this place had been dug out of the earth. It was floored with planks and a lone electric light cast a yellowish illumination over the scene. There was a crude table and a few chairs, while in one corner stood a small camp-bed.
On this bed he spied his father.
Fenton Hardy was bound hand and foot to the cot, so tightly trussed up that he was unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. He was lying flat on his back, staring up at the muddy ceiling of his prison. On a chair beside the cot was a large sheet of paper, presumably the document the smugglers were asking him to sign.
The detective did not hear the door open. As Frank looked at him he was conscious of a change in the appearance of his father, a change that shocked him extremely. For Fenton Hardy was thin and pale, his cheeks were sunken and he looked like a man who was famished for want of food.
Frank opened the door a little wider and tiptoed into the room. Joe followed quietly.
They knew that there was danger of the smugglers returning at any moment. They knew that they must work swiftly and quietly if they were to effect the release of their father.
A slight sound attracted Fenton Hardy’s attention and he slowly turned his head. When his gaze rested on the figures of the two boys who were stealing across the floor toward him he almost uttered an exclamation of amazement but he managed to check the involuntary utterance, although his face lighted up with relief.
Quickly, the Hardy boys reached his bedside. Frank drew out his pocketknife and, without a word, without even a whisper, began to hack at the ropes that bound his father. But the knife was dull and the ropes were heavy.
Joe had lost his knife in the water soon after they had left Bayport, and although he searched about the room, he was unable to find one, so he set himself to the laborious business of trying to untie the knots.
Every moment was precious. At any second, the boys knew, they might hear the footsteps of the approaching smugglers. They worked with frantic caution, working against time.
Frank hacked at the ropes, but the dull blade seemed to make little progress. Joe fumbled at the obstinate knots until his fingernails were broken, but he could scarcely loosen the strands.
Minutes passed—slowly and agonizingly. Fenton Hardy could give no assistance. He had to lie there in silence, not daring even to encourage the lads by a whisper. The silence was broken only by the heavy breathing of the two boys, by the scarcely audible sound of the knife against the ropes.
At last the knife cut through one of the ropes and Fenton Hardy’s feet were free. Frank pulled the ropes away, but a loose end fell on the floor with a light sound.
Slight as the noise was, it seemed to them almost deafening, in view of the necessity for silence. Desperately, Frank prepared to set to work to cut through the ropes that bound Fenton Hardy’s arms. And, even as he reached over with the knife, they heard a sound that sent a thrill of terror through them.
It was a heavy footstep beyond the door through which the smugglers had recently disappeared!
Someone was approaching the underground room.
Frank strained at the knife, but the ropes were stubborn. The dull blade made little impression at first. But at last the rope began to give, and
