Of course I was ready to go anywhere or do anything. He and his party were "standing by" to embark, and some ten or twelve natives were already coming down from the telegraph-station with folding-ladders, a portable telephone apparatus, coils of telegraph-wire, and repairing tools. They also brought with them a roughly-made coffin, and, as fast as they arrived, I sent them aboard the _Bunder Abbas_. Whilst Griffiths was pulling the dinghy backwards and forwards I asked Mr. Fisher how his wife and Miss Borsen were bearing up. "Wonderfully well," he said, his face twitching. "Women sometimes make us men almost ashamed of ourselves—they are so patient and brave." The dinghy had returned for us, and just as we were stepping in we heard a girl’s voice calling, and saw poor little Miss Borsen standing behind us, looking the picture of misery and distress, so sad and so pale under her big, white topee that I felt horribly sorry for her. I saluted and tried to show my sympathy. As I did so she flushed scarlet, and as quickly every trace of colour left her face; she seemed to freeze, and only bowed in the most distant manner. I knew that she meant this as a direct "cut", to remind me that she had not yet forgiven me for carrying her over the swamp that night. Speaking to Mr. Fisher, and ignoring me, she implored him to take her. He tried his best to dissuade her, but she insisted on coming. "Do you mind if she comes?" he asked, turning to me. "Not at all," I answered coldly, as if she were a complete stranger. "Anybody you care to bring may come." I looked to see if that hurt her, but she gave no sign whatever that she had heard. I felt angry to be so snubbed, and a brute to feel so enraged with her just when she was so miserable; but I could not help it. So they both came aboard with me, and an extremely uncomfortable trip it was—squeezed up together in the little dinghy as we were, with Miss Borsen ignoring me completely. However, I was sitting where I could see her profile, and she looked so utterly woebegone and lonely that my anger died away, until we got alongside, when she smiled so sweetly on Mr. Scarlett, as he helped her out of the boat, that I was furious again. I beat the feeling down, and, as she evidently loathed the sight of me, kept away, giving her and Mr. Fisher the use of the cabin and the little deck aft of it, and rigging up a screen for’ard of it, so that she need not see me whilst I took the "_B.A._" out of harbour. Percy fetched my pipe and tobacco, and I smoked furiously and fumed inwardly all the way down the coast, unable to avoid hearing Mr. Scarlett, on the other side of the screen, spinning one of his most exciting yarns and trying to take her thoughts away. However, he soon found that was no use, and came for’ard to me shaking his head. "Poor little lady! Poor little soul!"