When I got back to the camp all was still and quiet save for the heavy breathing of my comrades, and my mat lay by the dull fire just as I had left it. I pushed the ends of the long faggots into the heap of embers, and as a cheerful flame leaped up, I settled myself on my mat and immediately fell asleep. CHAPTER XIV. I AM LED INTO CAPTIVITY. I was aroused next morning by a vigorous shaking, and, opening my eyes, found Abduláhi Dan-jiwa bending over me. “Come, rouse up, thou sluggard,” said he, giving me another gentle shake that was like to have dislocated my shoulder; “the sun is up and I have found a lovely stream of pure water. Come and bathe so that we begin the day all fresh and clean.” I rose and rubbed my eyes, yawning sleepily, for I was none the livelier for my nocturnal adventures; but I slipped off my _riga_, and folding it up neatly on the mat, followed my big friend who was frisking along with the buoyancy of a child. The river was one of those beautiful little streams that are so plentiful in North Ashanti, whose crystal-clear waters trickle over beds of white sand between high banks carpeted with moss and fringed with lacy, delicate ferns. Several of our people were already splashing about in the water, and when Abduláhi and I, flinging our remaining clothes down on the bank, leaped in and joined the party, a regular water frolic began; and as I watched these boisterous, high-spirited Africans chasing one another up and down the stream, sousing one another with water, and shouting with laughter and delight, my thoughts went back to the far-away Kentish shore and the sun-browned fisher-boys who gambol in the pools when the tide is out in the long summer days. The fun was at its height when a loud shouting in the camp attracted our attention. We stopped our play and listened. Plainly enough the sound came down the wind, and we could clearly distinguish angry voices raised in high dispute. With one accord we rushed to the bank, and huddling on our clothes, ran off at top speed in the direction of the camp. And as we came out into the opening I saw at a glance that there was going to be very serious trouble--for me at least. A party of some thirty natives, all armed with long muskets, stood at a little distance, motionless but alert, and close by the fire half-a-dozen men, whose cowrie ornaments showed them to be fetish priests, were talking excitedly to our companions. As I appeared, one of these men, whose head was bound up with a blood-stained rag, pointed to me, and I then noticed that my _riga_ lay at his feet, and that he held in his hand the sinker with its coil of line. “What is this thing that thou hast done, Yúsufu, fool that thou art?” exclaimed Musa, furiously, as I came up. “Did I not tell thee that thy folly would bring a mischief on us?” “What say the wizards, my father?” I asked meekly, for my conscience was mighty sore at having brought this trouble upon my friends.