In the mean time, however, several of his men had deserted and joined Mahomet Her. He had warned them that they would repent of their folly. His warnings were curiously fulfilled. News soon arrived that Mahomet Her, with a party of a hundred and ten armed men, in addition to three hundred natives, had made a razzia upon a certain village among the mountains for slaves and cattle. Having succeeded in the village and capturing a number of slaves, as they were re-ascending the mountain to obtain a herd of cattle they had heard of, they were attacked by a large body of Latookas, lying in ambush among the rocks on the mountain side. In vain the Turks fought; every bullet aimed at a Latooka struck a rock, while rocks, stones, and lances were hurled at them from all sides and from above. Compelled to retreat, they were seized with a panic, and took to flight. Hemmed in by their foes, who showered lances and stones on their heads, they fled down the rocky and perpendicular ravines. Mistaking their road, they came to a precipice from which there was no retreat. The screaming and yelling savages closed round them. All was useless; not an enemy could they shoot, while the savages thrust them forward with wild yells to the very verge of a precipice five hundred feet high. Over it they were driven, hurled to destruction by the mass of Latookas pressing onward. A few fought to the last; but all were at length forced over the edge of the cliff, and met the just reward of their atrocities. No quarter had been given, and upwards of two hundred of the natives who had joined the slave-hunters in the attack, had fallen with them. Mahomet Her had not accompanied his party, and escaped, though utterly ruined. The result of this catastrophe was highly beneficial to Mr Baker. "Where are the men who deserted me?" he asked of those who still remained with him. Without speaking, they brought two of his guns covered with clotted blood mixed with sand. Their owners' names were known to him by the marks on the stocks. He mentioned them. "Are they all dead?" he asked. "All dead," the men replied. "Food for the vultures," he observed. "Better for them had they remained with me and done their duty." He had before told his men that the vultures would pick the bones of the deserters. From that moment an extraordinary change took place in the manner both of his _own_ people and those of Ibrahim towards him. Unhappily, however, the Latookas exhibited a change for the worse. The Turks, as usual, insulted their women, and treated the natives with the greatest brutality; and had he not exercised much caution and vigilance, both his own party and Ibrahim's would in all probability have been cut off. Ibrahim had been compelled to go back to Gondokoro for ammunition, and Mr Baker waited at Tarrangolle for his return.