However, our suspense was
shortly at an end. The smoke rising in the distance, and in the
direction of the road to Shoa, showed us but too clearly that the
would-be conqueror had, without striking a blow, returned to his
own country, and, with great gallantry, was burning a few miserable
villages, whose chiefs were adherents of Mastiate.
The excuse Menilek gave for his hasty retreat was, that his supplies
had run short, and that, having no camp-followers with him he could
not have flour prepared; that his troops being hungry and dissatisfied,
he had decided on returning at once to Shoa, collect his camp-followers,
and advance again better provisioned, and remain in the neighbourhood
of Magdala until it fell. The truth was, that to his great
disappointment he had heard from his camp the muskets fired during
the "fakering;" he knew that, as far as treachery was concerned,
his chance was gone for a while, and that he must await the effects
of want and privation induced by a long siege. Supplies he might
have obtained in abundance, as he was the ally of Workite and in a
friendly country. Should he even have required more, the undefended
districts of Worahaimanoo, Dalanta, etc., would have been quite
willing to send abundant provisions into his camp on the assurance
that they would not be molested. But if this "fakering" somewhat
deranged his plans, something he saw on the evening of the second
day, a mere speck of smoke, made him fairly run away.
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