So back to the "B.A." we went, and I heard Miss Borsen asking Mr. Fisher, with a half-sob, whether he had found anything.
We weighed anchor and felt our way, carefully, still farther along to the east'ard.
Presently the signal-man shouted to me that he saw someone on the beach, and, looking through my telescope, I made out a man hopping down towards the water's edge on one leg and waving his arms to attract attention.
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.