Keba Christos, Who Had Marched With Incredible
Expedition To Hinder The Enemy From Making Any Intrenchments, Would
Willingly Have Refreshed
His men a few days before the battle, but
finding the foe vigilant, thought it not proper to stay till
He was
attacked, and therefore resolved to make the first onset; then
presenting himself before his army without arms and with his head
uncovered, assured them that such was his confidence in God's
protection of those that engaged in so just a cause, that though he
were in that condition and alone, he would attack his enemies.
The battle began immediately, and of all the troops of Tecla Georgis
only the Galles made any resistance, the rest abandoned him without
striking a blow. The unhappy commander, seeing all his squadrons
broken, and three hundred of the Galles, with twelve ecclesiastics,
killed on the spot, hid himself in a cave, where he was found three
days afterwards, with his favourite and a monk. When they took him,
they cut off the heads of his two companions in the field, and
carried him to the Emperor; the procedure against him was not long,
and he was condemned to be burnt alive. Then imagining that, if he
embraced the Catholic faith, the intercession of the missionaries,
with the entreaties of his wife and children, might procure him a
pardon, he desired a Jesuit to hear his confession, and abjured his
errors. The Emperor was inflexible both to the entreaties of his
daughter and the tears of his grand-children, and all that could be
obtained of him was that the sentence should be mollified, and
changed into a condemnation to be hanged.
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