Showing how the Ogre Acquitted Himself at Gootabélla.
Many and tragic were the tales narrated of the prowess of the Ogre when the hot blood of youth boiled in his warrior veins. The first feat of his early days, ascribed to the year of the great comet, is still green in every recollection; and as it was recounted by Ibrahim Shehém, so was it vouched for by those of the Danákil braves, who during the recital crowded around the watch-fire at Gobaad.
The grey-bearded elders had sate for many nights in deep consultation, and the chicken-hearted of the Débeni had exhausted all the usual epithets upon the countless number of the foe, and the consequences of rash and fool-hardy adventure, when the youthful chief raised his manly form in the circle, and his brawny proportions seemed to dilate into colossal stature in the dimness of the evening mist.
“Listen to my words,” he exclaimed, “for they are the sentiments of my heart. Children of Lohe?ta, hearken to the voice of your leader! Has the spirit of the foul hare entered into the breast of the warrior? Is the shield no longer to clash, nor the broad spear to glitter in the valley of Gobaad? Are the Débeni tamely to suffer their wives and their daughters to be carried into captivity, their flocks and their herds to be swept off, their wells to be taken possession of, and their very name made the scorn and the laughing-stock of the dastardly Muda?to, without one struggle to prevent it? Dust be upon my head if the brave sons of the desert should thus root themselves in a quiet spot, like the withered and dying acacia, without a single thorn to avenge an insult! Rouse ye, my children, for in the name of the most holy Prophet I will even dare the danger of the war; and ignominy sully the fame of him who shall suffer his chief to mingle singly in the strife.”
Reseating his sinewy form upon the rock, Lohe?ta covered his face in the folds of his garment, and in anxious silence awaited the result of this appeal. But the chord of feeling had been struck by a master hand. A low murmur of voices was quickly followed by the deep hum of approbation accompanying the confused clatter of the bucklers, and the elders, rising simultaneously, proclaimed, “It is the voice and the will of the Most High. Even so let it be!” The erect spears sank with one accord to the ground, and the stern “Ameen” of the assembled tribe, rolled ominously amongst the surrounding cliffs.
For some days after this harangue, the Débeni maintained a peaceable demeanour: but it was now the still, treacherous calm which precedes the hurricane. The Galeyla Muda?to, who had already possessed themselves of all the choicest grazing grounds in the neighbourhood, and completely closed the caravan route from Abyssinia to the sea-coast, meanwhile continued their depredations with impunity; one subdivision of the tribe settling in the small valley of Gootabélla, where they erected permanent habitations, and boasted of their unmolested vicinity to the graves of the ancestors of Lohe?ta.
The Galeyla subdivision of the great nation of Muda?to had rendered itself more particularly obnoxious by its aggressions. Many were the young men of Gobaad who had fallen under their sharp knives. Scornful taunts were ever rife upon the tips of their insulting tongues; and few indeed of the huts in the valley had not at some period sent forth the voice of wailing and lamentation for captive maids or for harried flocks. But the day of dire retribution was fast speeding on. The wane of the moon was the appointed signal of rendezvous to the heretofore slothful tribe; and as the darkness of the unlit night shrouded the valley and the hill, all those members of the clan whose spirit had not been utterly quelled by the frequent disasters experienced at the hand of the sanguinary invader, mustered around their youthful chief.
Silently, like the descending wreath of snow, the files of warriors poured in from every quarter of his extensive though distracted domain. The nation had responded to the call of its leader; and the wrinkled brow, and the full oily cheek: the thin sinewy shank of the veteran, and the graceful form of the untried but aspiring stripling, were soon mingled together. The sun set upon a busy scene in the lone valley of Gobaad. Two thousand savages, enjoying the rude feast that had been amply provided for their wants, were engaged in close whispering consultation on the coming strife; and wrought to a pitch of frenzy by the spirit-stirring words of their warlike chief, no less than by the exhortations of his wily emissaries, who ever and anon mixed with the carousing groups, to feed their panting passions against the hereditary foe, each warrior firmly clenched his teeth in dread determination, whilst he whetted his sharp weapon to the keenest edge upon the nearest stone.
As the fire blazed brightly upon shield, and spear, and stalwart frame, Lohe?ta moved forth in front of his enclosure, buckled for the fray. His active form was fully revealed by the fitful flame; and a dark smile played for the moment over his stern visage, as his followers, rising with one accord, unsheathed their murderous creeses, and, bursting into a loud murmur of applause, swore by the Sacred volume that the steel should that night reek in the hot blood of the accursed Muda?to.
Placing himself at the head of his animated retainers, the chief now led the advancing van, and the tramp of the eager savage fell light over the steep mountain and the boundless plain. Deep darkness was esteemed of small account by these children of the desert, who, like the course of the falling thunderbolt, held on their progress in the true direction. Starting as the dense phalanx advanced, the timid gazelle scoured in terror over the valley, and the prowling lion yielded the path to men who were now in a mood not less desperate than his own.
The last rocky defile gained, a deep impenetrable gloom pervaded the scene. The very stars were hid under a partial mist, and naught gave token of the habitation or the presence of man, save at intervals the dis............