Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/262

 several other leading men among the Tigrans. If the devil can speak true, here surely was one example of it, Gondar that very day had proved fatal to the Ras; and Kefla Yasous himself told me, long after Michael was gone, and all was peace, that having visited him that very evening he left Debra Berhan, Michael had privately upbraided him with having prevented his burning the town, and told him, that his guardian spirit, Saint Michael the archangel, or the devil, or whatever we may please to call it, had left him, and never appeared to him again since he had passed the river Tacazzé on his return to Gondar; and to this he attributed his present misfortunes.

All the king's arms were surrendered with the rest, and Kefla Yasous was the only man that remained unsubdued, a distinction due to his superlative merit, and preserved to him by his enemies themselves in the very heat of conquest.

As for the Ras, he had continued in the house belonging to his office, visited only by some private friends, but had sent Ozoro Esther to the Iteghé's at Koscam, as soon as he entered Gondar. He ate, drank, and slept as usual, and reasoned upon the event that had happened with great equanimity and seeming indifference. There was no appearance of guards set upon him; but every motion and look were privately, but strictly watched. The next day, when he heard how ill his disarmed men were treated by the populace, when, they were dismissed to Tigre, he burst into tears, and cried out in great agony, Had I died before this I had been happy. He played no more at drafts, by which game formerly he pretended to divine the issue of every affair of