Bob sighed as he fitted on a fresh lead and hook, and was soon fishing once more, thoroughly awake now; and to his great delight he felt a sharp tug at his line, and striking, found that he had hooked a fish of a manageable size, which he soon hauled into the boat, and recognised as the _ikan sambilang_, a fish frequently sold to them by the Malays, and esteemed quite a delicacy. "It's a rum-looking one," said Dick, examining the captive as Bob put on a fresh bait. "It's just like one of the eel pouts as we boys used to ketch down in the drains in Yorkshire." "In the drains, Dick?" "Oh, I don't mean your drains. I mean land drains as take the water off a country. We used to catch lots on 'em, thick, short, fat fellows, but they hadn't got a lot of long beards like these here. What, another already!" "Yes, and a big one too," said Bob, excitedly, as he lugged out, after a sharp tussle, a handsome fish, with glistening scales, and a sharp back fin, bearing some resemblance to a perch. "That's the way, sir," said Dick, smoking contentedly in the bows. "I like fishing arter all." Bob smiled, and went on catching the little barbed fish, rapidly, and every now and then a good-sized fellow of a different kind. Two or three of the men came and leaned over the side to watch them for a few minutes, but the heat seemed too much for their interest to be kept up, and they soon disappeared. There was a little audience on the further bank, though, which watched Bob's fishing without ceasing, though unseen by the young fisherman. This audience consisted of three half-nude Malays, lying in a sampan hidden amidst the reeds of the river's side, and these men seemed greatly interested in all that was going on, till, as the evening drew near, Bob, who had captured at least sixty fish of various sizes, sat at last completely overcome by the heat, and following Dick's example, for that worthy had gone off fast asleep, and Bob's bamboo dipped in the water, the line unbaited, and offering no temptations to the hungry perch. That was the time for which the Malays in the sampan had been waiting, and one of them glided over the side like a short thick snake, reached the shore, and then making his way up stream for some little distance, he softly plunged in, with nothing but a kris in his lingouti, or string round the waist used by the natives to support their loin cloths, and after swimming boldly out for some distance, turned over, and floated with just his nose above the water. The stream did all he required, for the Malay had calculated his distance to a nicety, so that he was borne unseen right to the steamer's bows, and then floated along her side, and round the stem, where a few strokes brought him into the eddy.