rongly is the instinct of self-preservation implanted
in us. From a distance I looked back and saw by the light of the fired
tents that the Fung were attacking the Arabs with whom I had travelled,
I suppose because they thought them parties to the sacrilege. Afterwards
I heard that they killed them every one, poor men, but I escaped, who
unwittingly had brought their fate upon them.

"On and on I galloped up a steep road. I remember hearing lions roaring
round me in the darkness. I remember one of them springing upon my
horse and the poor beast's scream. Then I remember no more till I found
myself--I believe it was a week or so later--lying on the verandah of
a nice house, and being attended by some good-looking women of an
Abyssinian cast of countenance."

"Sounds rather like one of the lost tribes of Israel," remarked Higgs
sarcastically, puffing at his big meerschaum.

"Yes, something of that sort. The details I will give you later. The
main facts are that these people who picked me up outside their gates
are called Abati, live in a town called Mur, and allege themselves to
be descended from a tribe of Abyssinian Jews who were driven out and
migrated to this place four or five centuries ago. Briefly, they
look something like Jews, practise a very debased form of the Jewish
religion, are civilized and clever after a fashion, but in the last
stage of decadence from interbreeding--about nine thousand men is their
total fighting force, although three or four generations ago they had
twenty thousand--and live in hourly terror of extermination by the
surrounding Fung, who hold them in hereditary hate as the possessors
of the wonderful mountain fortress that once belonged to their
forefathers."

"Gibraltar and Spain over again," suggested Orme.

"Yes, with this difference--that the position is reversed, the Abati of
this Central African Gibraltar are decaying, and the Fung, who answer to
the Spaniards, are vigorous and increasing."

"Well, what happened?" asked the Professor.

"Nothing particular. I tried to persuade these Abati to organize an
expedition to rescue my son, but they laughed in my face. By degrees
I found out that there was only one person among them who was worth
anything at all, and she happened to be their hereditary ruler who bore
the high-sounding titles of Walda Nagasta, or Child of Kings, and Takla
Warda, or Bud of the Rose, a very handsome and spirited young woman,
whose personal name is Maqued