"I had just told them who you were, my nephews and the new superintendents. You've got to earn your living, you know. Bob will be responsible for the Pathans, and you for the Kalmucks. Of course you've a lot to learn."
"They looked as if they didn't much like their new bosses," said Bob.
"I daresay; but you'll be a comfort to me. I'm not troubled with nerves, but at times, I confess, I have felt what the old ladies call lonesome for want of a white man to talk to. The Babu is all very well, but now and again he worries me. When I'm tired and bothered he'll expound a knotty passage of Browning or some other incomprehensible poet; and when I should enjoy a little stimulating conversation, he 'havers,' as the Scotch say, in a mixture of high falutin' and outrageous slang. Now that you are here I've no doubt he'll be nothing but the joy I find him in my cheerful moods. I'm very glad of your company, boys."
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
THE AEROPLANE ARRIVES
During the next three weeks the younger Appletons were fully occupied in studying the working of the mine. Dressed in calico overalls they penetrated into the torch-lit galleries and watched the miners at their work. They saw the process of crushing the ore, but Mr. Appleton's operations went little further, for owing to his distance from civilisation and the limited space at his disposal, he left the final stages of purification to be performed in India. The boys were rather curious to know why the colours of the stains upon the clothing of the two bands of miners differed, but they forbore to question their uncle, guessing that he would tell them all in good time, and would meanwhile be pleased by their showing patience. In this they were right. Mr. Appleton had no wish to keep any secrets from them; he was only waiting until he had learnt something of the characters of the two young fellows, whom he had not seen for several years, and at no time had had many opportunities of studying.
They both soon showed their bents. In the evenings, when work was done, there was little to occupy them. Mr. Appleton's books were few; they were mainly books on mining and grammars and dictionaries of the local dialects. Robert seized on the former; Lawrence devoted himself to the latter; and their uncle was very well pleased, for each of these studies would prove useful. Their recreations were for the present confined to an occasional game of chess or cards, a still rarer shooting expedition in the hills, and the reading of the rather dilapidated magazines which had come at odd times from India and home. Lawrence missed his cricket, and Bob his golf; but in spite of what Mr. Appleton had said about the impossibility of using the aeroplane when it should arrive, they both looked forward privately to trying their wings by and by.
Lawrence soon became popular with the natives. He had a turn for languages, and managed to pick up quickly a little Turki and scraps of the other tongues spoken by the very mixed crowd that constituted the mining staff. Robert had not the same quickness in learning languages, but he made himself useful on the engineering side. He had been accustomed to spend part of his holidays in the engine shops of the father of one of his schoolfellows, and found his experience valuable. Once, for instance, when there was a breakdown of the somewhat crazy engine that worked the stamping presses, he was able to make the necessary repairs more quickly than Mr. Appleton himself, or the regular engine man, could have done. Mr. Appleton was a very good prospector and an all-round man in general, but he had no particular gift in the direction of mechanics, while the engine man had picked up from his master all he knew. He was a Gurkha, a short, compact little fellow, of hard muscles and a very quick intelligence. His race is more accustomed to military service than to machinery, and Fazl, as this man was named, had never seen a steam engine before he came to the mine. Mr. Appleton had found him wandering half starved in Turkestan two seasons before, and out of sheer kindness of heart put him on as cleaner. Some time after, the Mohammedan Bengali who had hitherto driven the engine asked leave to go home and bury his grandmother, and Fazl was promoted to his place. The Bengali, of course, never returned, and Fazl was still engine man.
One evening after supper Mr. Appleton said--
"Don't get your books yet, boys; I want to show you something."