From Enemies to Couple.

Episode 3

The first Patrol team left the palace of Gaa and the remaining two patrol teams left after an hour, following a different direction. That was their plan; in order that they might cover many places on time. The three teams agreed to meet at a place called Ogu after they must have searched all day.

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In a village known as Okwu a fisherman had just finished with the day's fishing at the river and was heading back to meet his daughter and his wife in his small hut when he sensed that someone was following him in the forest. He noticed this the first time but dismissed the thought from his mind, noting it must be one of the squirrels in the forest but when he took few more steps further and heard another sound he was then convinced that someone was following him and so he stopped and turned fully, drawing out his old dagger and bending down. When he rose again and decided to hastily leave the forest, he had just turned to move and behold the prince of Gaa standing before him and raising both hands to indicate peace. The fisher man looked at him from head to toe and asked in his native language "Are you the one making all the noise behind me? If yes, how come you are already behind me when I had to face where the noise was coming from?"

The prince did not understand him and he knew that if he spoke his own language the man would not be able to understand him and so he used signs by moving his hands to communicate with the fisher man. At first the fisher man thought he was dumb but then he spoke in the middle of the demonstration. The fisher man who nodded to his signs asked him to follow him and the prince followed him. Soon they were inside the open village. The prince could not believe his eyes; so many children running around and playing in the mud. There was many thatched huts with women who were carrying pots on their heads and almost half naked. Most of the people when they saw the prince paused from what they were doing to scan him all through with their eyes. Some of the children threw objects at him but the fisher man shouted at them in his native language and they stopped at once. The fisherman then took the prince inside his hut and the daughter of the man stood up immediately and left the hut. The prince looked at her for he could not tell why she had to leave the hut immediately he showed up. The father of the girl used the stick he was holding to hit the prince on his head to draw his attention back to himself.

"You do not look at my daughter like that" said the fisherman in his native language but the prince did not get him. The fisherman then turned to his wife and said, "He is a stranger. I found him at the stream side and it looks like he has no home and no place to spend the night and so I had to bring him here to you. I hope you would not mind if he spends the night with us"

The wife of the fisherman did not speak immediately her husband finished. She walked up to the prince and looked at him from head to toe and then pulled his arm to look at the rings in his fingers. She felt the rings with her own fingers and said to her husband, "These are pure gold. This man is not poor but rich"

"I know. I have seen what he is wearing but we are not going to steal from him. We are not bad people remember?" Said the man before he lowered his hand bag and heard the wife saying, "I know we aren't bad but there live among us those who will take these from him without blinking an eye"

"Not if we protect him from them. I have not asked him who he is or what his plans are but I will and after that we will know what next to do. Before then no one needs to know that he is here or spending the night here. If you go out there and our people ask you, " What about the stranger in your hut. Is he spending the night" tell them "No he has gone already, he is a traveler and a business man" said the fisherman before he asked the prince if he would like to eat anything using demonstrations and the prince nodded. He was asked to sit by the wife of the fisherman and he sat.

The daughter of the fisherman who went outside immediately the prince walked in was seen amongst some group of girls who were from the same village and was telling them how handsome the prince looked and how she almost fainted when she saw him. She said to them, "I was about to faint but thanks to the gods who made me hold myself together until I was out of my father's hut" she laughed as she said this. The father was behind them and watching the girls. He called his daughter's name and the young lady shyly walked up to her father having known that her father heard him clearly.

"You must not speak out of tongue and you must not talk about men like that. As far as we are concerned the stranger is no longer with us, am I understood?" The father left her standing there and her friends came to her and asked to know what the problem was but she said, "The stranger has gone out of our house"

Meanwhile while the fisherman was outside talking to his daughter the fisherman's wife was inside the hut admiring the prince and the expensive things he was wearing.