"Ambulance work in the school cadet corps, Uncle."
"Ah! They manage things better than when I was young. Good-night, boys."
Bob found himself much better in the morning, and declined his uncle's suggestion that he should remain in bed. But his wound was too painful to allow of his wearing a hat, and his appearance bareheaded, and with a strip of sticking plaster on his neck just behind his ear, caused many curious eyes to be turned towards him. Only the Babu made any reference to it. Inquisitiveness was his failing, and he could never keep his tongue still.
"I perceive, sir," he said, "that you are not in your usual salubrity. Your countenance is pale, and I opine from patch upon your neck that all is not O.K. Pardon me, have you abraded the cuticle?"
Bob looked at him.
"Because, sir," the Babu continued with great deference, "I have in my store sticky plaster, powdered alum, gold-beater's skin, sweet olive oil, cold cream scented with roses, all things warranted to make epidermis blooming and good as new. Item and in addition, perhaps a little cooling draught may reduce inflammability and----"
"Oh, shut up!" said Bob, and the Babu went away smiling but sorrowful.
The three Englishmen went about their usual occupations as if nothing had occurred. They watched the workmen narrowly for signs of guilt, but could detect nothing. The Pathans were frankly curious and sympathetic; the faces of the Kalmucks were as expressionless as they always appear to Europeans. Nurla Bai, who was the special object of Mr. Appleton's attention, was inscrutable: there was no change in his demeanour.
Convinced that his assailant had in some way crossed the river in the darkness of the previous night, Bob was at a loss to guess how he had accomplished the feat. In the interval at mid-day, when the men had trooped across the drawbridge for their meal, he suggested to Lawrence that they should walk along the pathway to the ledge on which they kept the aeroplane, and see if there were some fordable place which had escaped their uncle's notice. On the way they examined every foot of the cliff below them. It rose sheer from the bed of the river, so steep and smooth as to afford no foothold for man or beast. Even if the river had been swum or forded, it would have been impossible for any one to climb up to the level platform on which the mine works were situated. Nor could the most hardy and adventurous stranger have approached from above, for the slope was too steep to give foothold to a mountain sheep. In the other direction, down-stream, access was equally impossible, and for a time both the boys felt thoroughly baffled.
At length, however, Lawrence made a discovery. In retracing his steps towards the plank pathway he climbed out upon a huge buttress of rock that projected some feet into the river.