Rassam's orders, to whom they had been made over. He then
said, "Why did you not ask Mr. Rassam to bring you to me, and be
reconciled before you left?" and turning towards Mr. Rassam, said,
"It is your fault. I told you to reconcile me with them; why did
you not do so?" Mr. Rassam replied: that he had believed the written
reconciliation that followed the trial of the charges he had sent
against them to be sufficient. The Emperor then said to Mr. Rassam,
"Bid I not tell you I wanted to give them mules and money, and you
answered me that you had bought mules for them, and that you had
money enough to take them to their country? Now, on your account,
you see them in chains. From the day you told me that you desired
to send them by another road I became suspicious, and imagined that
you did so in order that you might say in your country that they
were released through your cunning and power."
The former captives' supposed crimes are well known, and its the
remainder of the trial was only a repetition of the one of Gondar,
it would be a mere waste of time to speak of it here; suffice it
to say that these unfortunate and injured men answered with all
humility and meekness, and endeavoured by so doing to avert the
wrath of the wretch in whose power they were.
The Emperor's pedigree was then read: from Adam to David all went
on smoothly enough; from Solomon's supposed son Menilek to Socinius
few names were given--perhaps they were patriarchs in their own
way; but when it came to Theodore's father and mother the difficulty
increased, indeed it became serious; many witnesses were brought
forward to testify to their royal descent, and even the opinion of
the puppet-Emperor Johannes was recorded in favour of Theodore's
legal right to the throne of his ancestors.
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