I trust in the Lord and he will help me;
I do not trust in my power. I trust in God who says, If you have
faith like a mustard seed, you can remove mountains." He said that
even if he had not chained Mr. Rassam it would have been all the
same; they would not have sent him the workmen. He knew already,
at the time of Bell and Plowden, that the English were not his
friends, and he only treated these two well out of personal regard
for them. He concluded by saying, "I leave it to the Lord: he will
decide it when we fight on the battle-field."
Theodore had vented his rage about the telescope to hide his
disappointment; he had said to one of his workmen at the time he
wrote to Flad to come up with the artisans, "You do not know me
yet; but call me a fool, if by my cunning I do not get them." Instead
of artisans, white men to be held as hostages, he received a firm
message, holding out no hope of friendship unless he set at liberty
all those he had so long unlawfully detained. His answers, so full
of meekness, he knew would please his followers; they were superstitious
and ignorant, and placed a certain credence in his hopeful words.
Desertions had considerably reduced his army. He well knew the
influence of numbers in a country like Abyssinia, and to increase
his scanty host, after plundering for the fourth or fifth time
Dembea and Taccosa, he issued a proclamation to the peasants in the
following terms:--"You have no more homes, grain, or cattle.
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