Free The Secret of the Soldier's Gold by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

of the suitcase. “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” he whispered.
    Frank suddenly felt movement behind him. When he shone the flashlight in that direction, it lit up Antonio de Feira’s face. Within seconds Paulo and Rafael had joined him.
    â€œKeep digging,” Antonio said. He was pointing a gun at them. “The hole needs to be big enough for the bodies of three young people!”

10 Escape!
----
    Now two more flashlights, held by Paulo and Rafael, were aimed at them.
    â€œShine them closer to the ground!” Antonio hissed. “If you don’t, someone from Senhora Bragança’s house will notice!”
    â€œSo what?” Paulo said. “We’ll just tell them that we’re checking on the plants.”
    â€œThat’s a dumb excuse,” Joe said. “They’ll never believe you.”
    â€œWhy not? It’s our job,” Rafael said. “We work as Senhora Bragança’s gardeners.”
    â€œNot for long,” Antonio said angrily. “With this gold we’ll finance the fascist revolution in Portugal, and people like Senhora Bragança will work for us !”
    â€œWe knew that something was up when we didn’tsee the dogs,” Rafael said. “We wondered what had happened, so we looked for them and found them sound asleep.” He laughed. “We’ve used that trick before ourselves.”
    Joe suddenly felt as if he were in the middle of some old war movie he had seen on television.
    â€œYou’ll never get away with burying us alive,” Frank said. “People will come looking for us.”
    â€œReally? Well, this suitcase has been buried for over sixty years!” Antonio said. “I think it might be another sixty years before anyone finds your skeletons.”
    â€œMy father is Inspector Manuel Oliveira of the Lisbon Police Department,” Isabel said. “You’ll be in serious trouble if anything happens to us.”
    Paulo snickered. “We’ll be long gone before he finds you,” he said.
    â€œOh, really?” Isabel said. “Well, for your information, he knows where I am at this very minute. I told him at dinner, right before I came over here.” She looked at Frank and Joe. “I’m sorry, guys, but I just had to tell him. I could never do something like this without my father’s approval.”
    â€œI guess you did what you had to do,” Joe said.
    Frank could see that Isabel’s revelation had an effect on the de Feira brothers’ plans.
    While Antonio kept the gun aimed at the Hardy boys and Isabel, Paulo and Rafael whispered to each other. When they finished Paulo said, “Well,that just may have saved your life—but I’m sure your father won’t be coming to check on you for several hours. So I suggest that you keep digging.”
    â€œWe just have one shovel,” Frank said.
    â€œYou have hands, don’t you?” Antonio said. “Do you think you’re too good to dig with them?”
    â€œI guess not,” Frank said. He tried to give the shovel to Isabel so he and Joe would dig with their hands, but Isabel ignored him and said, “What are you going to do with us now after we finish digging?”
    â€œJust be quiet and dig,” Rafael said angrily. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
    Isabel took the shovel from Frank and started tossing dirt out of the hole. Frank and Joe got down on their knees and used their hands to dig the soil away from the edges of the metal suitcase.
    â€œWhat if we made a lot of noise?” Joe whispered to Frank, their voices covered by Isabel’s digging. “Do you think that anyone in the house would hear us?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, Joe,” Frank whispered back. “Antonio would probably shoot us before help could arrive.”
    â€œWell, it looks like Isabel’s father was wrong about the de Feira brothers’ not being