The king and the royal family were no doubt excessively grieved to part with the Furtoo Mongo, but they were discreet persons and "listened to reason." War parties and scouts were forthwith despatched to blockade the paths, while press-gangs made recruits among the villages, and even in Timbo. Sulimani-Ali, himself, sallied forth, before daybreak, with a troop of horse, and at sundown, came back with forty-five splendid fellows, captured in Findo and Furo! The personal dread of me in the town itself, was augmented. If I had been a Pestilence before, I was Death now! When I took my usual morning walk the children ran from me screaming. Since the arrival of Sulimani with his victims, all who were under the yoke thought their hour of exile had come. The poor regarded me as the devil incarnate. Once or twice, I caught women throwing a handful of dust or ashes towards me, and uttering an invocation from the Koran to avert the demon or save them from his clutches. Their curiosity was merged in terror. _My popularity was over!_ It was not a little amusing that in the midst of the general dismay, caused by the court of Timbo and myself, my colored brother Ahmah-de-Bellah, and his kinsman Abdulmomen, lost no chance of lecturing me about my soul! We kidnapped the Africans all day and spouted Islamism all night! Our religion, however, was more speculative than practical. It was much more important, they thought, that we should embrace the faith of their peculiar theology, than that we should trouble ourselves about human rights that interfered with profits and pockets. We spared Mahometans and enslaved _only_ "_the heathen_;" so that, in fact, we were merely obedient to the behests of Mahomet when we subdued "the infidel!" This process of proselytism, however, was not altogether successful. As I was already a rather poor Christian, I fear that the Fullah did not succeed in making me a very good Mussulman. Still, I managed to amuse him with the hope of my _future_ improvement in his creed, so that we were very good friends when the Ali-Mami summoned us for a final interview. The parting of men is seldom a maudlin affair. The king's relations presented me bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep. His majesty sent me five slaves. Sulimani-Ali offered a splendid white charger. The king's wife supplied me with an African quilt ingeniously woven of red and yellow threads unravelled from Manchester cottons; while Ahmah-de-Bellah, like a gentleman of taste, despatched for my consolation, the two prettiest handmaidens he could buy or steal in Timbo! CHAPTER XXV.