Undaunted to the death, Medóko reared himself with difficulty from his couch, and his good sword flashed instantaneously from the scabbard. He had been unwarily caught in the toils; but, like the wounded lion, he stood fiercely at bay, and some of the hunters paid dearly for their treacherous sport. In the hour of battle his sword had seldom required a second blow, and as the trenchant blade now fiercely descended into the neck of the chief conspirator, the head of Guffa Woosen for a moment drooped upon the shoulder, and in the next his lifeless trunk fell heavily to the ground. Again the ruddy steel gleamed overhead, but the energy was fast fleeting from the stout sinew, and Selúnko, although marked for life with a desperate slash over the face, succeeded with the remnant of his cowardly ruffians in basely escaping from the scene. A general rush and scramble now ensued for the tops of walls and houses; and from these elevated places of security, savage yells proclaimed the perpetration of the dastardly deed. The king seized a double-barrelled gun from the wall, lest the mighty warrior should attempt to storm the harem; and a high tribute was paid to the single arm which had thus cleared the court.
Desperately wounded, the chief now staggered across the yard, fainting and falling more than once ere he reached the gateway. No doorkeeper remained to dispute the egress, and as yet none dared to cross the path of the stricken brave. One little enclosure alone separated him from his devoted followers, but his strength was fast sinking with the welling blood, and after swaying for a time from side to side, utterly exhausted, he fell, with a groan, upon his knee in the last pangs of death.
Tunkaiye, the great bulwark of the throne, was the first who recovered from the panic, and cautiously advancing with the chosen of the Amhára chivalry, he beheld through the wicket the situation of the chief. Rushing through the door, he dealt a blow from behind on the neck of the recumbent figure, and the head sunk to rise no more. One faint struggle of the right arm was alone to be distinguished, and one word was indistinctly murmured amidst the gurgling of the flowing blood; for the long knives of the assassins had penetrated into a brave heart, and the victory over the king’s enemy had been already achieved.
Crowds now rushed to the spot, and the limbs were hacked to pieces by the miserable poltroons amidst the coarsest ribaldry and mirth. One wretch, as he thrust his crooked knife into the late brilliant eye, exclaimed, “How is it that my father now bears the bite without power to brush away the gnat?” and another, after succeeding with difficulty in hewing through the iron muscles of the stout arm, declared, with a laugh, that “the skin of an elephant was composed of less tough material.”
Deprived of their weapons, and of the countenance of the mighty fallen, Medóko’s son and followers surrendered on the first summons; and a dog, carrying off his father’s hand, brushed past young Chára as he entered the murderous court-yard. Stones and sticks were still being expended on the remains of mortality which were strewed in every direction. All human resemblance had already been entirely effaced, and a deep pool of blood remained to mark the dire tragedy.
To this hour the stain is settled upon the spot; and it is daily before the eyes of the perpetrators of the outrage. The stern warrior is never mentioned within the precincts of the palace, and rich offerings are continually made to all the churches in the land, to dissipate the unpleasant dreams which too frequently haunt the royal couch. But although the name is now used amongst the Amhára only to still the unruly child, the gallant Medóko is the darling theme of the roving Galla. The heathen female draws the long tress across her flashing eye at the recollection of his fate; and the chief yet thinks with respect of the brave spirit who could quell the feud and the intestine quarrel, and who had led the wild host with success, to spoil the dominions of the Christian despot.