THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 149 
plain; every confideration, therefore, feemed to perfuade a 
fpeedy decifion, but the confequences of the laft engagement 
feemed to have damped the fpirit of the rebels, without ha- 
ving much raifed that of the king’s army. In faét, the 
days were dark and wet, and the nights cold, circumftan- 
ces in which no Abyfflinian choofes to fight. The army 
was thinly cloathed, or not cloathed at all, and encamped on 
high ground, where fuel, though it had not failed them yet, 
muift foon have done fo. 
Aw accident that happened this night had nearly brought 
about a revolution which the wifeft heads had laboured 
for many years in vain. Ras Michael had retired to bed at 
his ordinary trme, fomewhat before eleven o'clock, and a 
famp was left burning as ufual in his tent, for he was.afraid 
of fpirits. He was jut fallen afleep, when he felt a man’s 
arm. reach into the bed over him, which he immediately 
feized hold of, crying to his attendants, at the fame time, 
for help. Thofe that ran firft into the tent threw down the 
lamp and put out the light, fo that the man would have - 
efcaped, had not the people behind got about him, and 
endeavoured to hold him down, while entangled in, and 
ftruggling with the cords of the tent. The firft perfon that 
feized him was a favourite fervant of the Ras,a young man 
named Laeca Mariam, of a gocd family in Tigré; he, not 
perceiving his danger for wantof light, received a ftab with 
a broad knife, which pierced his heart, fo that he fell with- 
out fpeaking a word. Numbers immediately fecured the 
affaffin, who was found to have dropt one knife within the 
Ras’s tent, with which he had attempted at firft to have 
ftabbed him: but he was found to have another knife, 
two-edged, and fharp in the point, fixed along his arm, with 
TP 2 which 
