When we came to prepare our evening meal at the village in which we intended to sleep, Ali spread out a mat, and the three minstrels, to Aminé’s astonishment and mine, began to unship from their enormous pockets various odds and ends of food--one or two plantains, a few sweet potatoes, a couple of red yams, loose handfuls of beans, millet and maizemeal; and Osman produced a large lump of fufu wrapped in leaves. “Where didst thou get all these things?” Aminé asked the latter as he laid down the fufu. “I did not see thee buy anything.” The three men looked at one another and laughed long and loud. “Didst thou not see Osman go a-marketing at the last village we passed?” asked Ali with a sly leer. “I did not see him at all there,” replied Aminé. “Then thou mightest have known that he was gone a-marketing,” rejoined the balafu-player, and the minstrels all roared with laughter again. “I like not these Wongáras,” said Aminé to me when we had retired that night to the hut that the headman had lent us. “They are but a party of thieves, and will get us into trouble; and that old ape, Ali, trieth to make love to me when thou art not looking. As though _I_ would look at a black, monkey-faced Wongára, who have a husband like thee!” There was much truth in these observations, and the conduct of our companions caused me some anxiety. But what troubled me much more was the attitude of Aminé herself. Her calm adoption of me as her husband was beginning to be a very serious matter. Of course, her position was a perfectly reasonable one from an African point of view. A Mahommedan is not restricted to one wife, and certainly no countryman of Aminé’s would have hesitated a moment to snap up such a prize as this handsome Fulah girl. Nevertheless, the position was a very awkward one, for while, on the one hand, my acceptance even of the outward appearance of the relationship was an affront to Isabel and a reproach to my love and fidelity, on the other it was unfair to the poor girl herself, a fact that was impressed on me anew by every fresh instance of her simple faith and devotion. Yet I could not bring myself to the point of dispelling her delusion, and when my conscience rebuked me, as it often did, I was apt to put myself off with the hope that when we arrived at the Coast, Aminé’s fancy might be captivated by some gaudy sergeant-major or native officer of the Hausa force.