It was a great square building with a tower at one corner, built up of red sandy bricks, all rounded by age, and the mortar, or whatever it was which bound them together, so friable and crumbling that I could loosen a brick with the end of a stick in no time. An entrance under the tower (from which the door had long since disappeared) led into a courtyard covered with rubbish, and all round it were the remains of dwelling-rooms, storehouses, and stables. Some still had roofs to them. A great high wall with crumbling battlements and platforms seemed to shut out every trace of breeze and shut in every ray of heat. The place was like an enormous oven. I climbed up some rough brick steps leading towards the battlements and base of the tower and had a good view over the surrounding country. Beyond a few miserable palm trees was the open narrow piece of flat ground forming the neck of the peninsula. It gradually rose towards the telegraph buildings, and about halfway between—something like three hundred yards from where I stood—-were the line of wire entanglements and the earth breastwork, stretching right across from the rocks under which the _Bunder Abbas_ was anchored to the shore on the other side, where the shamel was still driving white breakers up the beach with a continuous roar. Still higher was that strong, loopholed wall surrounding the buildings themselves. Away to the east’ard ran the telegraph line on its bare steel poles: the line which ran along the coast to Karachi, and which the Afghans had cut only a few days ago. I could follow the line of telegraph posts till they dwindled into "nothing", and felt very thankful that it was not my job to go along that appallingly lonely coast to repair damages. I suppose I was seen from the telegraph station, for a servant came running down the peninsula, came into the middle of the courtyard, and I’m hanged if I didn’t get an invitation to tea with the political agent’s wife. I climbed down and followed him, pretending that I was unwilling to go, and grumbling to myself that if I did meet Miss Borsen we should probably have a row. In half an hour I found myself playing tennis with a borrowed racket and borrowed shoes, which flopped about like canoes on my feet, with Miss Borsen playing opposite me, and beating me time after time with her low drives along the side lines. She seemed to take a positive joy in seeing me falling over my own feet in my attempts to return balls much too good for me. I hate being beaten at any game, especially by a woman, so that did not improve my temper. "What about your gunner?" the political agent said, when at last I was allowed to "cool off" out of range of that little torturer’s eyes. "Doesn’t he ever come ashore?" This made me think of Jassim, the bracelet, and of snake poisons. "Do you know anything about poisons?" I asked. "How long do you suppose a cobra’s poison would remain deadly?"