He Added That They Had Received
Orders From The King To Conduct Me To Maana, {2} The Place Of His
Residence, and if I refused to come with them their orders were to
bring me by force; upon his saying
Which all of them rose up and
asked me if I was ready. It would have been equally vain and
imprudent in me to have resisted or irritated such a body of men; I
therefore affected to comply with their commands, and begged them
only to stop a little until I had given my horse a feed of corn, and
settled matters with my landlord. The poor blacksmith, who was a
native of Kasson, mistook this feigned compliance for a real
intention, and taking me away from the company, told me that he had
always behaved towards me as if I had been his father and master,
and he hoped I would not entirely ruin him by going to Maana, adding
that as there was every reason to believe a war would soon take
place between Kasson and Kajaaga, he should not only lose his little
property, the savings of four years' industry, but should certainly
be detained and sold as a slave, unless his friends had an
opportunity of paying two slaves for his redemption. I saw this
reasoning in its full force, and determined to do my utmost to
preserve the blacksmith from so dreadful a fate. I therefore told
the king's son that I was ready to go with him, upon condition that,
the blacksmith, who was an inhabitant of a distant kingdom, and
entirely unconnected with me, should be allowed to stay at Joag till
my return. To this they all objected, and insisted that, as we had
all acted contrary to the laws, we were all equally answerable for
our conduct.
I now took my landlord aside, and giving him a small present of
gunpowder, asked his advice in such critical a situation. He was
decidedly of opinion that I ought not to go to the king: he was
fully convinced, he said, that if the king should discover anything
valuable in my possession, he would not be over scrupulous about the
means of obtaining it.
Towards the evening, as I was sitting upon the bentang chewing
straws, an old female slave, passing by with a basket upon her head,
asked me IF HAD GOT MY DINNER. As I thought she only laughed at me,
I gave her no answer; but my boy, who was sitting close by, answered
for me, and told her that the king's people had robbed me of all my
money. On hearing this, the good old woman, with a look of
unaffected benevolence, immediately took the basket from her head,
and showing me that it contained ground nuts, asked me if I could
eat them. Being answered in the affirmative, she presented me with
a few handfuls, and walked away before I had time to thank her for
this seasonable supply.
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