We had just finished the huts and piled inside one of them as many dry sticks as we had been able to find, when the storm burst and the rain fell in torrents. But in spite of the threatening signs of its approach, it was but a small affair after all, and in half an hour the sun was shining again, and there was every promise of a fine night. “That is well over,” observed Ali, putting his head out of the low doorway of his hut. “We can make us a fire outside now, and cook us some food.” “There is mighty little to cook,” said Baku, following his leader into the outer air. “It is a pity that we did not stop to catch some of the fish that were swimming about in the river. There were plenty of them, and fine, large ones too.” “For that matter,” said Osman, “we might go and catch some now while Aminé tends the fire. I have some hooks that I bought at Táari.” “It is a long way back,” I objected. “We need not go back,” replied Osman. “The river is not far from here; I can show thee quite a short way. It should be good fishing after the rain.” “Then we should have to leave Aminé all alone,” I said. “I do not mind being left,” said she. “You will be back by the time it is dark. Go and catch some fish while I get the fire ready to cook it.” I at length agreed to “go a-angling” with the musicians, and in a few minutes had made the necessary preparations. A wicker bag--Aminé’s original caterpillar bag, in fact--fitted with a sling of creeper, answered as a creel; a ball of cotton yarn from Aminé’s private bundle would serve as a line, and Osman had a dozen or so of large, coarse hooks. With these appliances, and such bait as we might pick up, it would be possible to capture some of the fish, provided they were of an unusually unsophisticated and confiding nature. Osman’s short cut to the river turned out as disappointing as short cuts generally do. We scrambled through the thick undergrowth, pushing through thorny bushes and tripping up over the sprawling roots of great trees, but making very little headway, and the manner in which we twisted and turned and altered our course made me fear that Osman had lost his way. “We should have done better to go by the road,” I grumbled, as I extricated myself from the grapnels of a climbing palm; “we should have been there by now, and with less labour.” “The way is rough, indeed,” Osman admitted, “but we are nearly there.” He pushed on ahead and disappeared among the trees, and sure enough in a few minutes we heard his cheery announcement: “Here we are; here is the river at last, and here are the fish, too--swarms of them.”