Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.

Tragic End of Medóko.

In an open glade, at the foot of the great mountain range, stands the church of Affaf Woira, and the tenement of Abba Salama, its superior, enclosed by a rough stone wall. Numerous huts are scattered in clusters over a wooded eminence, which rises on the steep side of the river, and here the indolent brothers,

    “Beneath the shade of melancholy boughs.
    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.”

An air of the most perfect repose usually pervades the scene. The inmates are alike indifferent to the blast of winter and to the cares of life. Majestic trees tower high overhead, yielding undisturbed protection to the vulture and the white ibis. The “monk of the wood,” the Guréza ape, there displays his variegated coat floating in peace amongst the mossy branches; and whilst every breath from beneath wafts up the perfumed air, the lazy monk of the monastery, during the entire day, basks in the sun amidst the bright flowers of nature’s growth, gazing in apathy on the sparkling stream which steals through the forest, half hid in a fringe of the willow and the bamboo.

But bustle and confusion for once disturbed this dreamy repose. The priests had been engaged in noisy choir, and the sacred drum had resounded since dawn of day. At length the portals of the hallowed edifice were thrown open, and the holy procession, under the thundering chorus of an Abyssinian psalm, moved over the bright greensward. The gay umbrellas of the church, rich in satin and silver, led the van, and the corpulent Superior, in his white cotton robes, followed the insignia, bestriding a sleek mule decked in metal chains and tinkling bells. At his side marched the bearers of the straight falchions, sheathed in scabbards of polished silver. A band of priests followed, with their heads swathed in folds of white cotton, and their persons wrapped in black woollen cloaks, profusely studded with blood-red crosses and other emblems of Christianity; and closing the procession strode two hundred stout dirty monks, clothed in the skin of the wild antelope, with their shaven heads enveloped in dark greasy cloths, each carrying in his hand a small iron cross, and joining the tribute of his lusty throat to the deafening chant. Dell and dingle rung again as the psalm increased in violence, and the cavalcade, threading the intricacies of the wood, proceeded on its mission of mercy, to implore pardon for the rebel who had thrown himself on the protection of the monastery.

The conference with the monarch was long and stormy. The royal vengeance, though far from being appeased, was curbed by a fear of the Church, and more particularly so at the present juncture, when religious disputes regarding the two natures of Christ were beginning to excite an unusual ferment in many parts of the kingdom. An unwilling pardon was at length extorted, and the triumphant monks returned amidst the joyful acclamations of the female inhabitants of Shoa, whose shrill voices are raised on every possible occasion, and whose feelings were in the present instance enlisted in the behalf of their old favourite. The trip also would appear to have been profitable to the holy fathers, for it was currently reported that one half of the remaining wealth of Medóko was the stipulated price to be paid for this monastic intercession.

The nature of Abyssinian custom impels the humbled grandee to tempt again the slippery ladder of power; and disgraced for a time, the courtier, bending his neck to the misfortune, dances attendance on his capricious master until fickle fortune smiles upon his fallen condition. Unless enjoying the favour of the monarch, and basking in the sunshine of the court, he is held of no account whatever; and the quiet retirement of country life is despised and detested by a race who are ignorant of its pleasures, and possess neither amusements nor intellectual resources.

The property and estates of Medóko had not been confiscated, and months rolled quietly along as day after day he took his station among the courtiers in waiting; but the eye of the monarch was turned in cold indifference upon his former favourite, and there were not wanting counsellors to whisper deeds of blood into his ear. Besides the father confessor, the haughty chief had other enemies who were chafed at the sight of the numerous band of well-equipped followers that Medóko still entertained upon his ample means. Many also had lost relations during the rebellion, and misfortune had not abated one atom of the imperious demeanour which ever characterised the chief.

The feast of Máskal was now approaching, and it being rumoured that honours and government were to be again bestowed upon “the murderer of the Amhára,” as the rebel was denominated among the conspiring band, measures were taken to counteract the royal intention, if such had really been entertained. The most odious calumnies were industriously circulated; fresh accusations of disloyalty were daily carried to the palace; and the monarch, hourly assailed on every side, at length resolved to test the feelings of his vassal, by the offer of an inferior post in the unhealthy country of Giddem.

For the last time the gallant chief at the head of his followers swept up the palace hill of Angollála, and leaving, according to the etiquette, his son Chára, together with his retainers, in the middle court-yard, where shields and spears must be deposited, Medóko crossed the enclosure, and alone and unattended entered the inner wicket.

On the several faces of the inner square are the entrances to the principal buildings of the palace. The great hall of entertainment on one side faces the king’s stables on the other, and the artificers’ workshops stand opposite the balcony of justice; but all are connected by stone walls and stout palisades, through which private wickets lead to the interior apartments. His Majesty had not yet taken his seat in public, but the usual throng of people were lounging about the yard, or seated on the rough bedsteads which line one corner, for the convenience of the great.

Medóko had hardly taken his solitary seat, when wreathed in smiles the father confessor approached his victim. Whispering in his ear the intentions of the king, he strongly advised him to reject the proposal with scorn; and no sooner had he ended than the four conspiring chiefs advanced from the interior, bearing the royal preferment to the country which was so thoroughly detested, and which had been hitherto offered only to men of low degree.

The royal presentation, although received with the impatient curl of the lip, and an indignant breathing from the distended nostril, was declined in courteous terms—“The slave of the king desires only to be near the person of his master.” But far different was the insolent answer carried back to the monarch, whose superstitious feelings were further irritated by the previous discourse and forebodings of the monk; for a black bullock had been discovered lying dead at the threshold of the gateway, portending that on that day an untimely fate awaited some one within the royal precincts.

For a time no word escaped the moody lip of the monarch. His features remained fixed and still; but a withering glance from his solitary eye shot over the band as he dismissed them from his presence with the cutting remark, “That they were all traitors alike, and lazy cravens to boot.”

The hint was sufficient to Guffa Woosen, the Dedj Agafári, a man who stickled at no atrocity to gratify his master and to serve his own ends. After a hurried and mysterious consultation with six others equally unprincipled as himself, they proceeded together into the outer court-yard. Approaching by degrees, the band surrounded the bed of the chief, who was lulled into fatal security by a message that the king was about to appear to receive in person the refusal of office in Giddem, and whilst bandying a joke about the frail tenure of the dungeons of Góncho, five long-bladed knives were suddenly sheathed to the hilt in his brawny back.

Undaunted to the death, Medóko reared himself with difficulty from his couch, and his good sword flashed instantaneously from the scabbard. He had been unwarily caught in the toils; but, like the wounded lion, he stood fiercely at bay, and some of the hunters paid dearly for their treacherous sport. In the hour of battle his sword had seldom required a second blow, and as the trenchant blade now fiercely descended into the neck of the chief conspirator, the head of Guffa Woosen for a moment drooped upon the shoulder, and in the next his lifeless trunk fell heavily to the ground. Again the ruddy steel gleamed overhead, but the energy was fast fleeting from the stout sinew, and Selúnko, although marked for life with a desperate slash over the face, succeeded with the remnant of his cowardly ruffians in basely escaping from the scene. A general rush and scramble now ensued for the tops of walls and houses; and from these elevated places of security, savage yells proclaimed the perpetration of the dastardly deed. The king seized a double-barrelled gun from the wall, lest the mighty warrior should attempt to storm the harem; and a high tribute was paid to the single arm which had thus cleared the court.

Desperately wounded, the chief now staggered across the yard, fainting and falling more than once ere he reached the gateway. No doorkeeper remained to dispute the egress, and as yet none dared to cross the path of the stricken brave. One little enclosure alone separated him from his devoted followers, but his strength was fast sinking with the welling blood, and after swaying for a time from side to side, utterly exhausted, he fell, with a groan, upon his knee in the last pangs of death.

Tunkaiye, the great bulwark of the throne, was the first who recovered from the panic, and cautiously advancing with the chosen of the Amhára chivalry, he beheld through the wicket the situation of the chief. Rushing through the door, he dealt a blow from behind on the neck of the recumbent figure, and the head sunk to rise no more. One faint struggle of the right arm was alone to be distinguished, and one word was indistinctly murmured amidst the gurgling of the flowing blood; for the long knives of the assassins had penetrated into a brave heart, and the victory over the king’s enemy had been already achieved.

Crowds now rushed to the spot, and the limbs were hacked to pieces by the miserable poltroons amidst the coarsest ribaldry and mirth. One wretch, as he thrust his crooked knife into the late brilliant eye, exclaimed, “How is it that my father now bears the bite without power to brush away the gnat?” and another, after succeeding with difficulty in hewing through the iron muscles of the stout arm, declared, with a laugh, that “the skin of an elephant was composed of less tough material.”

Deprived of their weapons, and of the countenance of the mighty fallen, Medóko’s son and followers surrendered on the first summons; and a dog, carrying off his father’s hand, brushed past young Chára as he entered the murderous court-yard. Stones and sticks were still being expended on the remains of mortality which were strewed in every direction. All human resemblance had already been entirely effaced, and a deep pool of blood remained to mark the dire tragedy.

To this hour the stain is settled upon the spot; and it is daily before the eyes of the perpetrators of the outrage. The stern warrior is never mentioned within the precincts of the palace, and rich offerings are continually made to all the churches in the land, to dissipate the unpleasant dreams which too frequently haunt the royal couch. But although the name is now used amongst the Amhára only to still the unruly child, the gallant Medóko is the darling theme of the roving Galla. The heathen female draws the long tress across her flashing eye at the recollection of his fate; and the chief yet thinks with respect of the brave spirit who could quell the feud and the intestine quarrel, and who had led the wild host with success, to spoil the dominions of the Christian despot.