The next morning came on the trial of the unfortunate Guebra Denghel, Sebaat Laab, and Kefla Mariam; the Ras claimed his right of trying these three at his own house, as they were all three subjects of his government of Tigrè. Guebra Denghel bore his hard fortune with great unconcern, declaring, that his only reason of taking up arms against the king was, that he saw no other way of preventing Michael's tyranny, and monstrous thirst of money and of power: that the Ras was really king, had subverted the constitution, annihilated all difference of rank and persons, and transferred the efficient parts of government into the hands of his own creatures. He wished the king might know this was his only motive for rebellion, and that unless it had been to make this declaration, he would not have opened his mouth before so partial and unjust a judge as he considered Michael to be.
But Welleta Selassé, his daughter, hearing the danger her father was in, broke suddenly out of Ozoro Esther's apartment, which was contiguous; and, coming into the council-room at the instant her father was condemned to die, threw herself at the Ras's feet with every mark and expression of the most extreme sorrow. I cannot, indeed, repeat what her expressions were, as I was not present, and I thank God that I was not; I believe they are ineffable by any mouth but her own, but they were perfectly unsuccessful. The old tyrant threatened her with immediate death, spurned her away with his foot, and in her hearing ordered her father to be immediately hanged. Welleta Selassé, in a fit, or faint, which resembled death, fell speechless to the ground; the father, forgetful of his own situation, flew to his daughter's assistance, and they were both dragged out at separate doors, the one to death, the other to after sufferings, greater than death itself.
Fortune seemed to have taken delight, from very early life, constantly to traverse the greatness and happiness of this young lady. She was first destined to be married to Joas, and the affair was near concluded, when the fatal discovery, made at the battle of Azazo, that the king had sent his household troops privately to fight for Fasil against Michael, prevented her marriage, and occasioned his death. She was then destined to old Hatzé Hannes, Tecla Haimanout's father: Michael, who found him incapable of being a king, judged him as incapable of being a husband to a woman of the youth and charms of Welleta Selassé, and, therefore, deprived him at once of his life, crown, and bride. She was now not seventeen, and it was designed she should be married to the present king; Providence put a stop to a union that was not agreeable to either party: she died some time after this, before the battle of Serbraxos; being strongly pressed to gratify the brutal inclinations of the Ras her grandfather, whom, when she could not resist or avoid, she took poison; others said it was given her by Ozoro Esther from jealousy, but this was certainly without foundation. I saw her in her last moments, but too late to give her any assistance; and she had told her women-servants and slaves that she had taken arsenic, having no other way to avoid committing so monstrous a crime as incest with the murderer of her father.
The rage that the intercession of the daughter for her father Guebra Denghel had put the Ras into, was seen in the severity of the sentence he passed upon the other two criminals; Kefla Mariam's eyes were pulled out, Sebaat Laab's eye-lids were cut off by the roots, and both of them were exposed in the market-place to the burning sun, without any covering whatever. Sebaat Laab died of a fever in a few days; Kefla Mariam lived, if not to see, at least to hear, that he was revenged, after the battle of Serbraxos, by the disgrace and captivity of Michael.
I will spare myself the disagreeable task of shocking my readers with any further account of these horrid cruelties; enough has been said to give an idea of the character of these times and people. Blood continued to be spilt as water, day after day, till the Epiphany; priests, lay-men, young men and old, noble and vile, daily found their end by the knife or the cord. Fifty-seven people died publicly by the hand of the executioner in the course of a very few days; many disappeared, and were either murdered privately, or sent to prisons, no one knew where.
The bodies of those killed by the sword were hewn to pieces and scattered about the streets, being denied burial. I was miserable, and almost driven to despair, at seeing my hunting-dogs, twice let loose by the carelessness of my servants, bringing into the court-yard the head and arms of slaughtered men, and which I could no way prevent but by the destruction of the dogs themselves; the quantity of carrion, and the stench of it, brought down the hyænas in hundreds from the neighbouring mountains; and, as few people in Gondar go out after it is dark, they enjoyed the streets to themselves, and seemed ready to dispute the possession of the city with the inhabitants. Often when I went home late from the palace, and it was this time the king chose chiefly for conversation, though I had but to pass the corner of the market-place before the palace, had lanthorns with me, and was surrounded with armed men, I heard them grunting by two's and three's so near me as to be afraid they would take some opportunity of seizing me by the leg; a pistol would have frightened them, and made them speedily run, and I constantly carried two loaded at my girdle, but the discharging a pistol in the night would have alarmed every one that heard it in the town, and it was not now the time to add any thing to people's fears. I at last scarce ever went out, and nothing occupied my thoughts but how to escape from this bloody country by way of Sennaar, and how I could best exert my power and influence over Yasine at Ras el Feel to pave my way, by assisting me to pass the desert into Atbara.
The king missing me some days at the palace, and hearing I had not been at Ras Michael's, began to inquire who had been with me. Ayto Confu soon found Yasine, who informed him of the whole matter; upon this I was sent for to the palace, where I found the king, without any body but menial servants. He immediately remarked that I looked very ill; which, indeed, I felt to be the case, as I had scarcely ate or slept since I saw him last, or even for some days before. He asked me, in a condoling tone, What ailed me? that, besides looking sick, I seemed as if something had ruffled me, and put me out of humour. I told him that what he observed was true: that, coming across the market-place, I had seen Za Mariam, the Ras's doorkeeper, with three men bound, one of whom he fell a-hacking to pieces in my presence. Upon seeing me running across the place, stopping my nose, he called me to stay till he should come and dispatch the other two, for he wanted to speak to me, as if he had been engaged about ordinary business: that the soldiers, in consideration of his haste, immediately fell upon the other two, whose cries were still remaining in my ears: that the hyænas at night would scarcely let me pass in the streets when I returned from the palace; and the dogs fled into my house to eat pieces of human carcases at leisure.
Although his intention was to look grave, I saw it was all he could do to stifle a laugh at grievances he thought very little of. "The men you saw with Za Mariam just now, says he, are rebels, sent by Kefla Yasous for examples: he has forced a junction with Tecla and Welleta Michael in Samen, and a road is now open through Woggora, and plenty established in Gondar. The men you saw suffer were those that cut off the provisions from coming into the city; they have occasioned the death of many poor people; as for the hyæna he never meddles with living people, he seeks carrion, and will soon clear the streets of those incumbrances that so much offend you; people say that they are the Falasha of the mountains, who take that shape of the hyæna, and come down into the town to eat Christian flesh in the night."—"If they depend upon Christian flesh, and eat no other, said I, perhaps the hyænas of Gondar will be the worst fed of any in the world."—"True, says he, bursting out into a loud laughter, that may be, few of those that die by the knife anywhere are Christians, or have any religion at all; why then should you mind what they suffer?"—"Sir, said I, that is not my sentiment; if you was to order a dog to be tortured to death before me every morning, I could not bear it. The carcases of Abba Salama, Guebra Denghel, and the rest, are still hanging where they were upon the tree; you smell the stench of them at the palace-gate, and will soon, I apprehend, in the palace itself. This cannot be pleasant, and I do assure you it must be very pernicious to your health, if there was nothing else in it. At the battle of Fagitta, though you had no intention to retreat, yet you went half a day backward, to higher ground, and purer air, to avoid the stench of the field, but here in the city you heap up carrion about your houses, where is your continual residence."
"The Ras has given orders, says he gravely, to remove all the dead bodies before the Epiphany, when we go down to keep that festival, and wash away all this pollution in the clear-running water of the Kahha: but tell me now, Yagoube, is it really possible that you can take such things as these so much to heart? You are a brave man; we all know you are, and have seen it: we have all blamed you, stranger as you are in this country, for the little care you take of yourself; and yet about these things you are as much affected as the most cowardly woman, girl, or child could be."—"Sir, said I, I do not know if I am brave or not; but if to see men tortured or murdered, or to live among dead bodies without concern, be courage, I have it not, nor desire to have it: war is the profession of noble minds; it is a glorious one; it is the science and occupation of kings; and many wise and many humane men have dedicated their whole life to the study of it in every country; it softens men's manners, by obliging them to society, to assist, befriend, and even save one another, though at their own risk and danger. A barbarian of that profession should be pointed at. Observe Ayto Engedan, (who came at that very instant into the room) there is a young man, said I, who, with the bravery, has also the humanity and gentleness of my countrymen that are soldiers."