Five hundred yards away, on the narrowest portion of the peninsula, and commanding the landing place to the east—on our right as we looked inland—was the ruined sheikh’s fort, or Old Fort, which I had explored on my first visit. It was half-hidden in a fold of the ground and by some date-palm trees. A thousand yards away on the western side—our left-hand side—commanding the beach and landing place there, was the new sheikh’s fort, or New Fort, where the custom-house officers had been hanged by the Baluchis on their way back from destroying Bungi and Sudab. Between these were perhaps a score of native "matting" huts. The whole of the sloping neck of the peninsula afforded no cover whatever; but on the right side of the slope, just between the line of barbed-wire and the baby entrenchment was a line of more substantial huts belonging to the coolies and other servants of the telegraph staff. I don’t pretend to be a soldier; but it struck me immediately that this line of huts must be destroyed. It interfered with the fire space from the loopholed wall. Also I told Mr. Fisher that the half-ruined sheikh’s house—the Old Fort—must be pulled down, as it would give grand cover for an attacking force. He shook his head. "I daren’t do that; it belongs to the Mir of Jask." "If you don’t pull it down, blow it up," I said, smiling. "You can tell him it was an accident." All sorts of plans ran through my head. I suggested this and that—twenty different schemes—and rather swept Mr. Fisher off his feet with suggestions. "The first thing to do?" he asked, passing his hand nervously across his forehead, as if he only wanted to be told one thing at a time. "Blow up the Old Fort!" I told him, and he promised to start right away, as soon as he could get hold of his people. He took me up on the roof of the signal station, where the big telescope stood on its tripod, and I had a grand view of the surroundings of Old Jask, eight miles away, and the wriggling track which led to it round swampy inlets of the sea; of the dreary wastes of sand stretching east and west as far as the eye could see till they lost themselves in the mountains; of the interminable telegraph-poles dwindling away in the distance along the shore line to the east’ard and to the west’ard (to our left as we looked down), of the little _Bunder Abbas_ under her now trim awnings, and of a cluster of dhows moored close to the new sheikh’s fort and the village of New Jask. From force of habit Mr. Fisher slued round the telescope and diligently searched the plains at the foot of the mountains, in whose ravines and valleys the wild tribesmen were concealed. "Can’t see a single band of them this morning," he said with much relief. "The _Bunder Abbas_ is the cause of that."