Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/712

696 finished Mariam Barea, came to the king's tent to seek the unhappy prisoners, whom he intended as victims to the memory of Brulhè likewise. Hearing, however, that they were fled to Michael's tent, he sent Woosheka to demand them; but that officer had scarce opened his errand, in the gentlest manner possible, when Michael, in a fury, cried out, Cut him in pieces before the tent-door. Woosheka was indeed lucky enough to escape; but we shall find this was not forgot, for his punishment was more than doubled soon afterwards.

seeing Mariam Barea's head in the hands of a Galla, after forbidding him to expose it in his tent, Michael is said to have made the following observation: "Weak and cowardly people are always in proportion cruel and unmerciful. If Brulhè's wife had done this, I could have forgiven her; but for Joas, a young man and a king, whose heart should be opened and elated with a first victory, to be partaker with the Galla, the enemies of his country, in the murder of a nobleman such as Mariam Barea, it is a prodigy, and can be followed by no good to himself or the state; and I am much deceived if the day is not at hand when he shall curse the moment that ever Galla crossed the Nile, and look for a man such as Mariam Barea, but he shall not find him." And, indeed, Michael was very well entitled to make this prophecy, for he knew his own heart, and the designs he had now ready to put in execution.

is no wonder that these free communications gave the king reason to distrust Michael. And it was observed that Waragna Fasil had insinuated himself far into his favour: his late behaviour at the battle of Nefas Musa had