I called out to Mr. Fisher that we had found the place, pushed the "_B.A._" in as far as I dared, anchored, and he and the man with the telephone-box came ashore with me. "The wire’s cut about two hundred yards on the left," Mr. Scarlett shouted after us. "I can see it trailing on the ground." Griffiths pulled us in to the spot where the man—a Goanese he was—was waiting for us, squatting down close to the sea. As I jumped ashore I realized why he had been hopping—his left foot had been roughly hacked off above the ankle. He was gesticulating and sobbing, jerking his head backwards and forwards. Raving mad I thought him; certainly he was half-delirious, and as he held out both his arms towards us I shuddered, for he had no right hand, only a stump of a forearm. "Right hand, left foot—a common custom," Mr. Fisher said, quite calmly, as he let him sip from his water-bottle and tried to calm him. Presently he was helped upright, and went hopping through the sand to the top of the beach, where he clung to a telegraph-pole, close to the foot of which were the remains of a wood fire and what I took to be charred sticks. He began speaking very rapidly. He stopped, and Mr. Fisher led me away just as the repair party landed about two hundred yards farther along the beach. "Would you mind going and giving them a hand? They will work better if you do. I must stay here." I thought his request strange. His manner was very strange: his eyes were burning with fear and disgust. I did as he asked me and walked along to where the telegraph-wire lay on the sand, coiled in spirals like a snake. The repairing people were very smart at their job, fixed a rope and tackle from one cut end to the other, and then hauled taut the great length of wire between the two nearest telegraph-posts, mounting their portable ladders and fixing things in a most seamanlike way, until they had the wire as taut as they could haul it, with six or seven feet of rope tackle bridging the gap and the two cut ends of the wire hanging down. Then they commenced to put in a splice, and worked so cleverly and systematically that I was quite interested. The sun was getting close to the horizon by the time the wire was properly joined together and their work finished. Mr. Fisher came to see the job, and the telephone-box was brought along and messages sent into Jask and to the nearest relay station on the other side. "Well, that is done," he said, with a sigh of relief, "until they cut it again." The repairing people took their gear back to the "_B.A._" and we were left alone. He took me to where we had landed, and I saw the mutilated Goanese sitting close to the coffin, which I had not noticed being brought ashore. "Did you find Borsen’s body?" I asked. He nodded very sadly. "Yes; all that was left of it—a few charred bones. They had cut him in pieces and burnt them."