"Thanks," answered Harry; but the prospect did not console him for the loss of his friend.
Both Frank and Gilbert soon found their sea-legs, and after the first few days thoroughly enjoyed the voyage.
On reaching Calcutta Frank found a telegram awaiting him, requesting him to use all possible despatch to reach the mines.
Upon inquiry he found there was a train leaving Calcutta at nine o'clock for Giridhi, the terminus of the East Indian Railway branch line running up to the Ganges Coal-mines. He decided, therefore, to start that same night, by which means they would reach their destination the following morning about six o'clock, and arrive at the mines a couple of hours later.
"We've the whole day before us," said Frank, "so I think I'll hunt up my old friend Fergusson; he's in the police; and I'm pretty sure he's in Calcutta at the present time. I've got his address somewhere."
He looked in his pocket-book, where he found it, and calling a ghari, drove to Circular Road. Fergusson was delighted to see them; but when he heard where they were bound for, he burst out laughing and exclaimed: "Well, you're going into a nice hornet's nest, a district which is giving Government at this moment more trouble than any in the Presidency!"
"Indeed," said Frank, "and why?"
"It's overrun with Dacoits," answered Fergusson. "At their head they have a notorious rascal, named Hari Rām. Rumour runs that he is a sort of Robin Hood. He plunders the rich, and shares his booty with the poor, who consequently protect him in such a fashion that we cannot lay our hands on him; he just slips through our fingers. He politely declares he will do the English no harm, and so far he has kept his word. I have not heard of a single case of an Englishman being attacked; but the native merchants are having a bad time of it. He waylays their carts, carries off their bullocks, and robs them of their cotton, or cocoons, as the case may be. Not a day passes but what we have reports of Hari Rām's misdoings."
"Rather a bad look-out," said Frank. "It seems absurd that the Government cannot lay hands on him."