Chapter 41

contrary, they only retreated further back.

With the few men who followed him, he passed through the Kafir Ber, but had not gone far before he saw the Gallas advancing from all sides in order to surround him and his party. He then said to his few faithful followers, "Leave me: I will die alone." They refused; on that he said to them, "You are right; but let us return to the mountain: it is better to die by the hands of Christians."

The surrender of the army, the storming of Magdala, the self-inflicted death of Theodore, are too well-known facts for me to enlarge upon them I entered the place shortly after it had been occupied by our troops. One of the first objects that attracted my attention was the dead body of Theodore. There was a smile on his lip--that happy smile he so seldom wore of late: it gave an air of calm grandeur to the features of one whose career had been so remarkable, whose cruelties are almost unparalleled in history; but who at the last hour seemed to have recalled the days of his youth, fought like a brave man, and killed himself rather than surrender.

I remained that night in Magdala. It seemed passing strange to spend a night as a free man in the same hut where I had been so long confined a prisoner. English soldiers now guarded our former gaolers, the queen was our guest, the dead body of Theodore lay in one of our huts: in the short span of forty-eight hours our position had so completely changed that it was difficult to realize it: at times I was apprehensive of being the victim of a delusion. I was too excited to sleep.

General Wilby, his aide-de-camp Captain Cappel, and his brigade-major Major Hicks, shared my hut; hungry and tired they enjoyed quite as much as I did, the simple Abyssinian dish of teps, the peppery sauce, and some tej, which we ourselves went to fetch from the cellars in the royal buildings. The next day we returned to Arogié, and during my stay there I received the kind hospitality of General Merewether. On the 16th, some of the released captives and myself started for Dalanta, where we waited a few days until all had joined; and on the 21st, after Sir Robert Napier had presented us to our deliverers, we proceeded on our way to the coast, and reached Zulla on the 28th of May.

Looking back now, a free man in a free country, the past appears to me like a horrible dream, a kind of missing link in my life; and when I remember that our deliverance was followed so shortly afterwards by the self-destruction of the passionate despot who held us in his power, I can find no truer solution to this difficult problem, than the words inscribed by the warm-hearted countrymen of Kerans, on the banner that floated at Ahascragh to welcome his return, "God is good, who set you free."

ERRATUM.

Page 33, line 13,--_For_ "Samuel, the Georgis balderaba" _Read_ "Samuel Georgis, the balderaba"