Though Bardel Was Not A Favourite; Being Justly Distrusted By All, It Seems That A Kind Of Intimacy Sprung Up Between The Two, And In An Hour Of Confidence Mr. Brandeis Revealed To Bardel A Plot They Had Made To Run Away, Proposing To Him To Join Their Party.

Bardel accepted. A short time afterwards they returned to Debra Tabor, or rather to a short distance from it, where they were making the roads.

They at once set to work to complete their arrangements, and at last, everything being ready for the route, they fixed upon the night of the 25th of February for their departure. Towards ten in the evening Bardel looked into the tent where all were assembled, and seeing at a glance that everything was ready, pretended to have forgotten something in his tent, and begged them to wait a few minutes for him. They agreed, and mounting his horse, Bardel started at full gallop to fetch Theodore. That man, so unprincipled that even Abyssinians looked upon him with contempt, had basely betrayed, out of mere love of mischief, those poor men who had trusted in him. Theodore was quite taken aback when Bardel told him that the four he had taken into his service, and Mackerer, were on the point of deserting. "But were you not also one of the party?" Theodore inquired. Bardel said that it was true; but if he had entered into the plot, it was only to be able to prove his attachment to his master by revealing it to him, when he could with his own eyes assure him of the correctness of the assertion.

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