The traveller then gave him his letters of recommendation, which he laid down unopened beside him, and said, “You should have brought a moollah along with you. Do you think I shall read all these letters? Why, it would take me a month!” And while he spoke he glared upon his guest with his mouth open, so extremely like an idiot, that it was with the utmost difficulty Bruce kept his gravity. However, he replied, “Just as you please—you know best.”
After a short conversation in Arabic, which the naybe at first affected not to understand, our traveller brought forward his present, which the naybe understood without the assistance of a moollah, and shortly afterward took his leave.
The inhabitants of Masuah were at this time dying so rapidly of the small-pox, that there was some reason to fear the living would not suffice to bury the dead. The whole island was filled with shrieks and lamentations both day and night; and they at last began to throw the bodies into the sea, which deprived Bruce and his servants of the support they had derived from fish, of which some of the species caught there were excellent.
On the 15th of October, the naybe, having despatched the vessel in which Bruce had arrived, began to put out his true colours, and, under various pretences, demanded an enormous present. Bruce, of course, refused compliance. He then sent for him to his house, and after venting his fury in a storm of abuse, concluded by saying, in a peremptory tone, that unless our traveller were ready in a few days to pay him three ounces of gold, he would confine him in a dungeon, without light, air, or food, until his bones should come through his skin for want. To aggravate the affair, an uncle of his, then present, added, that whatever the naybe might determine respecting his own demands, he could in nowise abate a jot from those of the janizaries; which, however, in consideration of the letter he had brought from the port of the janizaries at Cairo, were moderate—only forty ounces of gold.
To all this Bruce replied firmly, “Since you have broken your faith with the grand seignior, the government of Cairo, the pasha at Jidda, and Metical Aga, you will no doubt do as you please with me; but you may expect to see the English man-of-war the Lion before Arkeeko some morning by daybreak.”
“I should be glad,” said the naybe, “to see that man at Arkeeko or Masuah who would carry as much writing from you to Jidda as would lie upon my thumb-nail. I would strip his shirt off first, and then his skin, and hang him up before your door to teach you more wisdom.”
“But my wisdom,” replied Bruce, “has taught me to prevent all this. My letter has already gone to Jidda; and if in twenty days from this another letter from me does not follow it, you will see what will arrive. In the mean time, I here announce to you that I have letters from Metical Aga and the Sheriff of Mecca, to Michael Suhul, governor of Tigrè, and the King of Abyssinia. I therefore would wish that you would leave off these unmanly altercations, which serve no sort of purpose, and let me continue my journey.”
The naybe now muttered in a low voice to himself, “What, Michael too! then go your journey, and think of the ill that’s before you!” Upon which the traveller left him.
Other altercations, still more violent, ensued, and attempts were made by the creatures of the naybe to break into his house and murder him in the night; but these were constantly defeated by the courage and fidelity of his servants. Achmet, too, the nephew of the naybe, exerted whatever influence he possessed in behalf of the traveller; who, in return, was, under Providence, the means of preserving his life; for Achmet at this time falling ill of an intermittent fever, Bruce assiduously attended and prescribed for him, and in the course of a few days had the satisfaction of pronouncing him out of danger.
On the morning of the 6th of November, while at breakfast, Bruce received the agreeable intelligence that three servants had arrived from Tigrè; one from Jamai, the Greek, the other two from Ras Michael, both wearing the royal livery. Ras Michael’s letters to the naybe were short. He said the king’s health was bad, and that he wondered the physician sent to him by Metical Aga from Arabia had not been instantly forwarded to him at Gondar, as he had heard of his having been some time at Masuah. He therefore commanded the naybe to despatch the physician without loss of time, and to furnish him with all necessaries.