but don't let the Ras either kill or maim him." "Come, said I, let us go to the Ras, and he shall neither kill, maim, nor punish him, if I can help it. It is my first request; if he refuses me I will return to Jidda; come and hear."
Aylo had urged the thing home to the Ras in the proper light—that of my safety. "You are a wise man, says Michael, now perfectly cool, as soon as he saw me and Welleta Selassé. It is a man like you that goes far in safety, which is the end we all aim at. I feel the affront offered you more than you do, but will not have the punishment attributed to you; this affair shall turn to your honour and security, and in that light only I can pass over his insolence." "Welleta Selassé, says he, falling into a violent passion in an instant, What sort of behaviour is this my men have adopted with strangers? and my stranger, too, and in the king's palace, and the king's servant? What! am I dead? or become incapable of governing longer?" Welleta Selassé bowed, but was afraid to speak, and indeed the Ras looked like a fiend.
"Come, says the Ras, let me see your head." I shewed him where the blood was already hardened, and said it was a very slight cut. "A cut, continued Michael, over that part, with one of our knives, is mortal." "You see, Sir, said I, I have not even clipt the hair about the wound; it is nothing. Now give me your promise you will set Guebra Mascal at liberty; and not only that, but you are not to reproach him with the affair further than that he was drunk, not a crime in this country." "No, truly, says he, it is not; but that is, because it is very rare that people fight with knives when they are drunk. I scarce ever heard of it, evenin
