The king was no sooner gone than the army missed him, and was all in the greatest uproar. But, having finished his expedition, he joined them in the morning, and encamped again with them. On his arrival, he found waiting for him a messenger from Tzaga Christos, with accounts that he had fought successfully with the Falasha, entirely defeated them, slain many, and forced the rest to hide themselves in their inaccessible mountains. Immediately after this intelligence, Tzaga Christos, with his victorious army, joined the king also.
These good tidings were followed by others equally prosperous from Hadea and Fatigar. They were, that the king’s army in those parts had forced Saber-eddin to a battle, and beaten him, taken and plundered his house, and brought his wife and children prisoners; and that the troops had found that country full of merchandise and riches of all kinds; that they were already laden and incumbered with the quantity to such a degree, that they were all speaking of disbanding and retiring to their houses with riches sufficient for the rest of their lives, although a great part of the country remained as yet untouched, and, therefore, it was requested of the king in all diligence to enter it on his side also, and march southward till both armies met. Immediately upon this message, the king, having refreshed his troops, and informed them of the good prospects that were before them, decamped with his whole army, and entered the province of Ifat.
When Saber-eddin saw the king’s forces were joined, that he had no allies, and that it was, in the situation of his army, equally dangerous to stay or to fly, he took a resolution of submitting himself to the king’s mercy; but, first, he endeavoured to soften his anger, and obtain some assurances through the mediation of the queen. The king, however, having publicly reproved the queen for offering to intermeddle in such matters, and growing more violent and inflexible upon this application, there remained no alternative but that of surrendering himself at discretion. Whereupon Saber-eddin threw himself at the king’s feet. The soldiers and by-standers, far from being moved at such a sight, with one voice earnestly besought the king, that the murderer of so many priests, and the profaner and destroyer of so many Christian churches, should instantly meet the death his crimes had merited. The king, however, whose mercy seems to have been equal to his bravery, after having reproved him with great asperity, and upbraided him with his cruelty, presumption, and ingratitude, ordered him only to be put in irons, and committed to a close prison. At the same time, he displaced Hydar, governor of the province of Dawaro, of whose treason he had been long informed; and he invested Gimmel-eddin, Saber-eddin’s brother, with the government of the Mahometan provinces, who, as he pretended, had not been present at the beginning of the war, but had preserved his allegiance to the king, and dissuaded his brother from the rebellion.
While the king was thus settling the government of the rebellious provinces, he received intelligence that the kings of Adel and Mara had resolved to march after him into Shoa when he returned, and give him battle.
At this time the king was encamped on the river Hawash, at the head of the whole army, now united. This news of the hostile intentions of the kings of Adel and Mara, so exasperated him, that he determined to enlarge his scheme of vengeance beyond the limits he had first prescribed to it. With this view, he called the principal officers of his army together, while he himself stood upon an eminence, the soldiers surrounding him on all sides. Near him, on the same eminence, was a monk, noted for his holiness, in the habit in which he celebrated divine service. The king, in a long speech pronounced with unusual vehemence, described the many offences committed against him by the Mahometan states on the coast. The ringleaders of these commotions, he declared, were the kings of Adel and Mara. He enumerated various instances of cruelty, of murder, and sacrilege, of which they had been guilty; the number of priests that they had slain, the churches that they had burned, and the Christian women and children that they had carried into slavery, which was now become a commerce, and a great motive of war. They, and they only, had stirred up his Mahometan subjects to infest the frontiers both in peace and war. He said, that, considering the immense booty which had been taken, it might seem that avarice was the motive of his being now in arms, but this, for his own part, he totally disclaimed. He neither had nor would apply the smallest portion of the plunder to his own use, but considered it as unlawful, as being purchased with the blood and liberty of his subjects and brethren, the meanest of whom he valued more than the blood and riches of all the infidels in Adel. He, therefore, called them together to be witnesses that he dedicated himself a soldier to Jesus Christ; and he did now swear upon the holy eucharist, that, though but twenty of his army should join with him, he would not turn his back upon Adel or Mara, till he had either forced them to tribute and submission, or extirpated them, and annihilated their religion.
He then entered the tent-door, and took the sacrament from the hands of the monk, in presence of the whole army. All the principal officers did the same, and every individual of the army, with repeated shouts, declared, that they acceded to, and were bound by, the oath the king then had made. A violent fury spread in this instant through the whole army; they considered that part of the king’s speech as a reproach, which mentioned the spoils they had taken to have been bought by the blood of Christians, their brethren. Every hand laid hold of a torch, and, whether the plunder was his own or his fellow-soldiers, each man set fire, without interruption, to the merchandise that was next him. The whole riches of Ifat and Hadea, Fatigar and Dawaro, were consumed in an instant by these fanatics, who, satisfied now that they were purged from the impurity which the king had attributed to their plunder, returned poor to their standards, but convinced in their own conscience of having now, by their sacrament and expiation, become the soldiers of Christ, they thirsted no longer after any thing but the blood of the inhabitants of Adel and Mara.
Soon after, Amda Sion heard that the Moors had attacked his army in Ifat two several nights, and that his troops had suffered greatly, and with difficulty been able to maintain themselves in their camp. The king was then upon his march when he heard these disagreeable news; he hastened, therefore, immediately to their relief, and encamped at night in an advantageous post, short of his main army, with a view of taking advantage of this situation, if the Moors, as he expected, renewed their attack that night for the third time.
The Abyssinians, to a man, are fearful of the night, unwilling to travel, and, above all, to fight in that season, when they imagine the world is in possession of certain genii, averse to intercourse with men, and very vindictive, if even by accident they are ruffled or put out of their way by their interference. This, indeed, is carried to so great a height, that no man will venture to throw water out of a bason upon the ground, for fear that, in ever so small a space the water should have to fall, the dignity of some elf, or fairy, might be violated. The Moors have none of these apprehensions, and are accustomed in the way of trade to travel at all hours, sometimes from necessity, but often from choice, to avoid the heat. They laugh, moreover, at the superstitions of the Abyssinians, and not unfrequently avail themselves of them. A verse of the Koran, sewed up in leather, and tied round their neck or their arms, secures them from all these incorporeal enemies; and, from this known advantage, if other circumstances are favourable, they never fail to fight the Abyssinians at or before the dawn of the morning, for in this country there is no twilight.
The Moors did not, in this instance, disappoint the king’s expectation; as they, with all possible secrecy, marched to the attack of the camp, while the king, having refreshed his troops, put himself in motion to intercept them; and they were now arrived, and engaged in several places with very great vigour. The camp was in apparent danger, though vigorously defended. At this moment the king, with his fresh troops, fell violently upon their rear; and, it being known to the Moors that this was the king, they withdrew their army with all possible speed, carrying with them a very considerable booty.
The success which had followed these night expeditions, above all, the small loss that had attended the pursuit, even after they were defeated, from the perfect knowledge they had of the country, inspired them with a resolution to avoid pitched battles, but to distress and harrass the king’s army every night. They accordingly brought their camp nearer than usual to the king’s quarters. This began to be felt by the army, which was prevented from foraging at a great distance; but provisions could not be dispensed with. The king, therefore, detached a large body of horse and foot that had not been engaged or fatigued. The greatest part of the foot he ordered to return with the cattle they should have taken, but the horse, with each a foot-soldier behind him, he directed to take post in a wood near a pool of water, where the Moorish troops, after an assault in the night, retired, and took refreshments and sleep by the time the sun began to be hot. The Moors again appeared in the night, attacked the camp in several places, and alarmed the whole army; but, by the bravery and vigour of the king, who every where animated his troops by his own example, they were obliged to retreat a little before morning, more fatigued, and more roughly handled, than they had hitherto been in any such expedition.