Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/57

Rh in Abyssinia."—"Madam, says Ayto Confu, is not Guesgué yours? does it pay you any thing?"

" was mine, says the queen, while any thing was mine; but Michael took it and gave it to Coque Abou Barea, and since, it has paid me nothing. Fasil has sent for him about the affair of Yagoube, as he says, and has ordered him to come in the same manner that he himself is come in private; but forbid him to bring his army with him, in order that no means of relief may be possible to this devoted country." Large tears flowed down her venerable face at saying these words, and shewed the deep-rooted fear in her heart, that Michael's coming was decreed without possibility of prevention. "I wonder, says Ayto Engedan, laughing, to divert her, if Coque Abou Barea is the same good Christian that you and Yagoube are; if he is not, nothing else will save him from the hands of Confu and me; for we both want horses and mules for our men, and he has good ones, and arms too, that belonged to my father."—"And both of you, says the queen, are as bad men as either Woodage Asahel or Coque Abou Barea." At this moment the arrival of Fasil was announced, and we were all turned out, and went to breakfast. I saw him afterwards going out of the palace. He saluted me slightly, and seemed much pre-occupied in mind. He only desired me to come to Gondar next morning, and he would speak to me about Coque Abou Barea; but this the Iteghé refused to permit me to do, so I remained at Koscam.

Fasil, although he did not deny that he had made peace with Ras Michael, yet, to quiet the minds of the people, always solemnly protested, that, so far from coming to Gondar,