I was, for some minutes, in the utmost astonishment at this torrent of bad news. Whether the others knew more than I, it is impossible to say; dissimulation, in all ranks of these people, is as natural as breathing. Guebra Mehedin and Confu were the Iteghé’s two nephews, sons of Basha Eusebius her brother, a worthless man, and his sons no better. They were young men, however, whom I saw continually at the queen’s palace, and to whom I should have gone immediately without fear, if I had known their houses had been in my way, and they happened to be near Lebec at the hot wells; notwithstanding their rank, they were of such dissipated manners, that they were of no account, but treated as castaways in the house of the queen their aunt, and never, as far as I knew, had entered into the presence of the king. I had often ate and drank with them, however, in the house of Ayto Engedan, their cousin-german, who was gone off with Welleta Israel his aunt, at the passage of the Nile as before mentioned. They had beat Strates, who was their intimate acquaintance, violently; as also two others of my servants, to make them confess in what package the gold was. They had taken from them also a large blunderbuss, given me by the Swedish consul, Brander, at Algiers; a pair of pistols, a double-barrelled gun, and a Turkish sword mounted with silver, which, as there was then no prospect of their being immediately needed, were sent forward with the baggage.
Netcho and Adigo, and all present, agreed that the whole was a fiction, and that, supposing the account to be true that Begemder and Amhara were in rebellion, young, wild, and worthless people, like Guebra Mehedin and Confu, could never be those pitched upon for the respectable office of Fit-Auraris. The worst that could be, as they conceived, was, that some misunderstanding might subsist between Ras Michael and the governors above named, but Fasil was undoubtedly the enemy of them all. They imagined therefore that this disgust, if any, would be soon got over, and concluded that it was highly absurd, in any case, to attack me, as they certainly knew that the queen, Powussen, and Gusho, would be full as ill-pleased with it as the king or Ras Michael. It therefore appeared to them, as it also did to me, that these wild, young men, had taken the first surmise of a rebellion, as a pretence for robbing all that came in their way, and that I, unfortunately, had been the first.
We were in the middle of this conversation when the parties appeared. They had, perhaps, an hundred horse, and were scattered about a large plain, skirmishing, playing, pursuing one another, shrieking and hooping like so many frantic people. They stopt, however, upon coming nearer, seeing the respectable figure that we made, just ready to pass the ford, which alone divided us. Our servants had neither seen Netcho nor Adigo, when they went in the morning, though they knew Adigo was expected, and these marauders hoped to have intercepted me, thinly accompanied, as they had done my baggage.
Guebra Mehedin and his brother approached nearer the banks than the rest, and a servant was sent from them, who crossed the river to us, upbraiding Ayto Adigo with protecting a Frank proscribed by the laws of their country, and also with marching to the assistance of Ras Michael, the murderer of his sovereign, offering at the same time to divide the spoil with him if he would surrender me and mine to him. Servants here, who carry messages in time of war between the contending parties, are held sacred like heralds. They are sent even with insults and defiances; but it is constantly understood that their errand protects them from suffering any harm, whether on the road, or when in words they perform these foolish, useless commissions.
Adigo and Netcho were above observing this punctilio with robbers. Some were for cutting the servant’s ears off, and some for carrying him bound to Ras Michael; I begged they would let him go: and Netcho sent word by him to Guebra Mehedin to get the goods and mules he had robbed us of together, for he was coming over to share them with him. The servants having given the messenger a severe drubbing with sticks, torn the cloth from about his middle, and twisted it about his neck like a cord, in that plight sent him back to Guebra Mehedin, and we all prepared to take the ford across the river. Guebra Mehedin, who saw his servant thus disgraced returning towards him, and a considerable motion among the troops, advanced a few steps with two or three more of his company, stretching forth his hand and crying out, but still at a distance that we could not hear. He was distinguished by a red sash of silk twisted about his head. I, with my servants and attendants, first passed the river at the ford, and I had no sooner got up the bank, and stood upon firm ground, than I fired two shots at him; the one, from a Turkish rifle, seemed to have given him great apprehensions, or else to have wounded him, for, after four or five of his people had flocked about him, they galloped all off across the plain of Foggora towards Lebec.
Netcho had passed the Gomara close after me, crying upon me to let him go first, but Adigo declared his resolution to go no farther. He hated Ras Michael; was a companion of Powussen and Gusho, as well as a neighbour, and wished for a revolution with all his heart. He, therefore, returned to Emfras and Karoota, and with him I sent five of my servants, desiring him to escort my quadrant, clock, and telescopes into the island of Mitraha, and deliver them to Tecla Georgis, the king’s servant, governor of that island. Adigo, being left alone by the servants, could not be persuaded but some great treasure was hid in those boxes. He, therefore, carried them to his house, and used the servants well, but opened and examined every one of the packages. Surprised to find nothing but iron and rusty brass, he closed them again, and delivered them safely to Tecla Georgis, there to be kept for that campaign.
Delivered now from the embarrassment of my baggage by the industry of Guebra Mehedin, and of my cases and boxes by my own inclination, we set out with Netcho to take up our quarters with Negadè Ras Mahomet at Dara, where we arrived in the afternoon, having picked up one of our mules in the way, with a couple of carpets and some kitchen furniture upon it, all the rest being carried off.
The object which now first presented itself, and called our attention, was Strates in a night-cap, in other respects perfectly naked, with a long gun upon his shoulder, without powder or shot, but prancing and capering about in a great passion, and swearing a number of Greek oaths, which nobody there understood a word of but myself. This spectacle was rather diverting for some minutes; at last Netcho, though I believe he was not over-well provided, gave him an upper cloak to wrap round him. It was not then warm, indeed, but it was not very cold. After recovering the mule, he got on between the panniers, and I advised him to put the smallest carpet about him, which he soon after did; he had not yet spoke a word to me from sullenness.
“Strates, said I, my good friend, lay aside that long gun, for you will fall and break it, besides, it hath not been charged since it was fired at Guebra Mehedin. If you carry it to strike terror, it is altogether unnecessary; for, if we had dressed you as you are now accoutred, when we sent you forward with the baggage to Dara, there is not a thief in all Begemder would have ventured to come near you.” He looked at me with a countenance full of anger and contempt, though he said nothing; but, in Greek, pronounced anathemas against the father of Guebra Mehedin, according to the Greek form of cursing. “Curse himself and his brother, said I, and not his father, for he has been dead these twenty years.”—“I will curse whom I please, says he, in a great passion, I curse his father, himself, and his brother, the Ras, and the king, and everybody that has brought me into such a scrape as I have been to-day. I have been stripped naked, and within an inch of having my throat cut, besides being gelded; and well may you laugh now at the figure I make. If you had seen those damned crooked knives, with their black hands, all begging, as if it had been for charity, to be allowed to do my business, you would have been glad for my making no worse figure to-night than I do with this carpet upon my head.”
“My dear Strates, said I, it is the fortune of war, and many princes and great men, who, at this moment I am speaking to you, live in the enjoyment of every thing they can desire, before a month expires, perhaps, will be stretched on the cold ground, a prey to the birds and wild beasts of the field, without so much as a carpet to cover them such as you have. You as yet are only frightened; though, it is true, a man may be as well killed as frightened to death.” “Sir, says he, in a violent rage, that I deny, it is not the same? a man that is killed feels no more, but he that is frightened to death, as I have been to-day, suffers ten thousand times more than if he had been killed outright.”—“Well, said I, Strates, I will not dispute with you; I believe they suffer much the same after they are dead; but you, I thank God, have only lost your cloaths, and you are now most comfortably, though not ornamentally, wrapped up in my carpet; as soon as we get to Dara, you shall be dressed from head to foot, by Negadé Ras Mahomet, at the expence of the king, in better cloaths than you ever wore in your life, at least since I knew you; only give me your gun till your passion is allayed; you know it is a valuable one; which I never quit.”