"Go to bed," growled Mr. Appleton, only half awake.
"It'll keep till morning, but I think you had better hear it now. I'll tell you through the doorway while I bathe Bob's head."
"What's wrong with his head?"
When Lawrence explained how Bob had seen a glow from the window, in the Pathan section of the mine, Mr. Appleton sat up, now thoroughly awakened. He listened to the rest of the story in silence. At its conclusion he said:
"Just cut downstairs and tell that fellow at the door to hold his tongue about it. Why on earth didn't you wake me at once, Bob, instead of playing that schoolboy trick?"
"I didn't want to disturb you."
"That's all very well, though you wouldn't have hurt an old campaigner like me. You ought to have told me at once, and then we might have caught the rascal. I'm afraid there's trouble ahead, and I've a shrewd suspicion who's at the bottom of it. You didn't recognize the man in the gallery?"
"No; his back was towards me."
"What's it mean, Uncle?" asked Lawrence, returning.
"It means that some one--Nurla Bai, I fancy--suspects that I've found silver, or at any rate something better than copper. You remember how he'd been trespassing on the night you came. But how did he get across? You saw all the men off the premises at bugle call, Bob?"