"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."
I shuddered, and knew that what I had mistaken for charred sticks had been bones. That was why he had sent me away.
There was nothing more to say, and we stood looking out over the sea, with rage burning within us, at the thought of the hideous, useless tragedy which had taken place at this spot only two days ago.