Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/619

Rh bringing their arms in their hands, as well those that they carried upon them, as the spare arms, all of which were primed and charged.

first question was, what to do with the Bishareen? None of us had any suspicion of him. We unchained him from the Barbarin, and fastened his other hand, then gave him to the Tucorory, and made them stand behind to increase the appearance of our number. I then advanced to the edge of the hill, and cried out with a loud voice, "Stop! for you cannot pass here." Whether they understood it I do not know, but they still persisted in mounting the hill. I again cried, shewing my firelock, "Advance a step farther and I'll fire." After a short pause they all dismounted from their camels, and one of them, with his lance in his hand, came forward till within twenty yards, upon which Idris immediately knew them, and said, they were Ababdé. "Ababdé or not, said I, they are seventeen men, and Arabs, and I am not of a disposition, without further surety, to put myself in their hands as Mahomet Aga did. I am sure they are perfectly in our power now, as long as they stand where they are." Idris then told me that he was married to one of the Ababdè of Shekh Ammer, and he would go and get a sure word from them. Tell them from me, said I, that I, too, am the friend of Nimmer their Shekh, and his two sons, and of Shekh Hammam of Furshout; that I am going into Egypt, have been followed by the Bishareen, and trust nobody; have twenty men armed with firelocks, and will do them no harm, provided they consent to pass, one by one, and give a man for a hostage.