“Jee-rusalem!” he exclaimed.  “This is where I lose out!”

The first glance was enough to show that they stood in the secret treasure-vault of Sialpore.  There were ancient gold coins in heaps on the floor where they had burst by their own weight out of long-demolished bags—­ countless coins; and drums and bags and boxes more of them behind.  But what made Dick exclaim were the bars of silver stacked at the rear and along one side in rows as high as a man.

“My contract reads gold!” he said.  “A percentage of all gold.  There’s not a word in it of silver.  Who’d ever have thought of finding silver, anyhow, in this old mountain?”

“Your percentage of the gold will make you rich,” said Utirupa.  “But you shall take silver too.  Without you we might have found nothing for years to come.”

“A contract’s a contract,” Dick answered.  “I drew it myself, and it stands.”

“Look out!” yelled Tom Tripe suddenly.  But the warning came too late.

Out of the shadow behind a stack of silver bars rushed a man with a long dagger, stabbing frantically at Dick.  Tom’s great barking army revolver missed, filling the chamber with noise and smoke, for he used black powder.

Down went Dick under his assailant, and the dagger rose and fell in spasmodic jerks.  Dick had hold of the man’s wrist, but the dagger-point dripped blood and the fury of the attack increased as Dick appeared to weaken.  Utirupa ran in to drag the assailant off, but Trotters got there first—­chose his neck-hold like a wolf in battle—­and in another second Dick was free with Tess kneeling beside him while a life-and-death fight between animal and man raged between the bars of silver.

“Gungadhura!” Yasmini shouted, waving her lantern for a sight of the struggling man’s face.  He was lashing out savagely with the long knife, but the dog had him by the neck from behind, and he only inflicted surface wounds.

“Hell’s bells!  He’ll kill my dog!” roared Tom.  “Hi, Trotters.  Here, you—­Trotters!”

But the dog took that for a call to do his thinking, and let go for a better hold.  His long fangs closed again on the victim’s jugular, and tore it out.  The long knife clattered on the stone floor, and then Tom got his dog by the jaws and hauled him off.

“You can’t blame the dog,” he grumbled.  “He knew the smell of him.  He’d been told to kill him if he got the chance.”

“Gungadhura!” said Yasmini again, holding her lantern over the dying man.  “So Gungadhura was Tom Tripe’s ghost!  What a pity that the dog should kill him, when all he wanted was a battle to the death with me!  I would have given him his fight!”

Dick was in no bad way.  He had three flesh wounds on his right side, and none of them serious.  Tess staunched them with torn linen, and she and Tom Tripe propped him against some bags of bullion, while Utirupa threw his cloak over Gungadhura’s dead body.