The Highlands of Ethiopia

by Sir William Cornwallis Harris

The conference with the monarch was long and stormy. The royal vengeance, though far from being appeased, was curbed by a fear of the Church, and more particularly so at the present juncture, when religious disputes regarding the two natures of Christ were beginning to excite an unusual ferment in many parts of the kingdom. An unwilling pardon was at length extorted, and the triumphant monks returned amidst the joyful acclamations of the female inhabitants of Shoa, whose shrill voices are raised on every possible occasion, and whose feelings were in the present instance enlisted in the behalf of their old favourite. The trip also would appear to have been profitable to the holy fathers, for it was currently reported that one half of the remaining wealth of Medóko was the stipulated price to be paid for this monastic intercession.

The nature of Abyssinian custom impels the humbled grandee to tempt again the slippery ladder of power; and disgraced for a time, the courtier, bending his neck to the misfortune, dances attendance on his capricious master until fickle fortune smiles upon his fallen condition. Unless enjoying the favour of the monarch, and basking in the sunshine of the court, he is held of no account whatever; and the quiet retirement of country life is despised and detested by a race who are ignorant of its pleasures, and possess neither amusements nor intellectual resources.

The property and estates of Medóko had not been confiscated, and months rolled quietly along as day after day he took his station among the courtiers in waiting; but the eye of the monarch was turned in cold indifference upon his former favourite, and there were not wanting counsellors to whisper deeds of blood into his ear. Besides the father confessor, the haughty chief had other enemies who were chafed at the sight of the numerous band of well-equipped followers that Medóko still entertained upon his ample means. Many also had lost relations during the rebellion, and misfortune had not abated one atom of the imperious demeanour which ever characterised the chief.

The feast of Máskal was now approaching, and it being rumoured that honours and government were to be again bestowed upon “the murderer of the Amhára,” as the rebel was denominated among the conspiring band, measures were taken to counteract the royal intention, if such had really been entertained. The most odious calumnies were industriously circulated; fresh accusations of disloyalty were daily carried to the palace; and the monarch, hourly assailed on every side, at length resolved to test the feelings of his vassal, by the offer of an inferior post in the unhealthy country of Giddem.

For the last time the gallant chief at the head of his followers swept up the palace hill of Angollála, and leaving, according to the etiquette, his son Chára, together with his retainers, in the middle court-yard, where shields and spears must be deposited, Medóko crossed the enclosure, and alone and unattended entered the inner wicket.

On the several faces of the inner square are the entrances to the principal buildings of the palace. The great hall of entertainment on one side faces the king’s stables on the other, and the artificers’ workshops stand opposite the balcony of justice; but all are connected by stone walls and stout palisades, through which private wickets lead to the interior apartments. His Majesty had not yet taken his seat in public, but the usual throng of people were lounging about the yard, or seated on the rough bedsteads which line one corner, for the convenience of the great.

Medóko had hardly taken his solitary seat, when wreathed in smiles the father confessor approached his victim. Whispering in his ear the intentions of the king, he strongly advised him to reject the proposal with scorn; and no sooner had he ended than the four conspiring chiefs advanced from the interior, bearing the royal preferment to the country which was so thoroughly detested, and which had been hitherto offered only to men of low degree.

The royal presentation, although received with the impatient curl of the lip, and an indignant breathing from the distended nostril, was declined in courteous terms—“The slave of the king desires only to be near the person of his master.” But far different was the insolent answer carried back to the monarch, whose superstitious feelings were further irritated by the previous discourse and forebodings of the monk; for a black bullock had been discovered lying dead at the threshold of the gateway, portending that on that day an untimely fate awaited some one within the royal precincts.

For a time no word escaped the moody lip of the monarch. His features remained fixed and still; but a withering glance from his solitary eye shot over the band as he dismissed them from his presence with the cutting remark, “That they were all traitors alike, and lazy cravens to boot.”

The hint was sufficient to Guffa Woosen, the Dedj Agafári, a man who stickled at no atrocity to gratify his master and to serve his own ends. After a hurried and mysterious consultation with six others equally unprincipled as himself, they proceeded together into the outer court-yard. Approaching by degrees, the band surrounded the bed of the chief, who was lulled into fatal security by a message that the king was about to appear to receive in person the refusal of office in Giddem, and whilst bandying a joke about the frail tenure of the dungeons of Góncho, five long-bladed knives were suddenly sheathed to the hilt in his brawny back.