Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/414

 386 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

great willlngnefs, the office of that night for me. I went to bed, and fell prefently into a profound fleep, from which I was awakened, a little before midnight, by a meflage from the ladies, my patients, in the Shekh's houfe, fent by the black flave that had fpoken in the Abyflinian language to me while I was attending her miftre fs. They advifed me to be upon my guard, for the Shekh was abfolutely refolved to take a fevere revenge upon us all : That after we had left him that evening, an exprefs arrived from the lower part of Atbara, giving him an account that Shekh» Ibrahim, a great man at Sennaar, and favourite of Adelaa the prime minifter, while he was employed in gathering the taxes from the Arabs, had fought with the tribe called Shukorea, fomewhere eaft of Sennaar ; that he had beea completely beaten, and many of his people killed ; as alfo^ that Shekh Ibrahim and his two fons were wounded ; that Shekh Fidele had immediately fent back word, that he had: then with him a furgeon and phyfician, meaning me, who could, upon occalion, even bring a dead man to life, but that 1 would never confent to come to him unlefs I was forced ; therefore, if he would difpatch a fufficient number of armed men, to help him to furprife me in the night, he .would con- du<5t the execution of that fcheme, and would fend me to him; in iron^;^ He faid I was an infidel, a white man from Abyf-^ finia, and had feveraL ftout people with me expert in fire^ arms, (of which I had a number,) who would be of great ufe to him in fubduing the Arabs. They aflured mc, however^ of their friendship, and begged me to confider what I had. Uo do in time, for many wild men would be poured in up-- 0J3. mo, who would not fail to kill me if I rcfifled.

A I RETURNEZ^