"There will be plenty to pay him with!" she answered, her eyes gleaming.
So Gungadhura, with his face still heavily bandaged, drove in a lumbering closed carriage up the rough track to the tunnel Dick had blasted in the hill-side. The carriage could not go close to the tunnel-mouth, because the track was only wide enough just there for the dump-carts to come and go. So he got out and walked into the tunnel unattended. Dick was used to seeing him about the works in any case and never objected to explaining things, several times over on occasion.
He found Dick superintending the careful erection of a wall of rock and cement, and he thought for an instant that the American looked annoyed to see him there. But Dick assumed his poker expression the moment afterward, and you couldn't have guessed whether he was glad or sorry.
"You block the tunnel?" the maharajah asked.
"The vein's disappeared," said Dick. "The rock's all faulty here this and that way. I'm shoring up the end to keep the roof from falling down on us, and next I'm going to turn sharp at right angles and try to find the end of the vein where it broke off."
"You are too near the fort in any case," said the maharajah. "No use driving under the fort."
"What do you propose I should do?" Dick answered a trifle testily.
"Dig elsewhere."
"What, and scrap this outlay?"
"Yes. I have a reason. A particular—eh—reason."