Oubié and Goscho Beru kept to their engagements, offered battle to Ras Ali near Debra Tabor, and utterly routed his army; Ras Ali with difficulty escaping from the field with a small body of well-mounted followers. It so happened, however, that Oubié celebrated his success in potations too many and deep. Some of the fugitive soldiers of Ras Ali accidentally entered Oubié's tent, found their master's conqueror in the condition known as dead drunk, and availed themselves of his helpless condition to make him their prisoner. This sudden contretemps changed the aspect of affairs. Certain well-mounted horsemen galloped after Ras Ali and succeeded in overtaking him towards evening. He would not at first believe in his good fortune; but others of his soldiers arriving and confirming the glad tidings, he returned to Debra Tabor, reunited his scattered followers, and was able to dictate terms to his captive conqueror. Oubié was pardoned and allowed to return to Tigré, the Bishop being answerable for his fidelity. Ras Ali treated the Bishop with all respect, fell at his feet and implored him not to listen to the calumnies of his enemies, assuring him that the Church had no more faithful son than himself, nor any more willing to comply with the holy father's wishes. The Bishop, now on friendly terms with all parties, and all but worshipped by them, soon made his authority felt; and had not Theodore risen from obscurity, Abouna Salama would, no doubt, have been the Hildebrand of Abyssinia. During the campaigns of Lij Kassa against the ruler of Godjam, and during that period of revolution ending in the overthrow of Ras Ali, Abouna Salama retired to his property in Tigré, residing there in peace under the protection of his friend Oubié. Ever since his arrival in Abyssinia Abouna Salama had shown the bitterest opposition to the Roman Catholics: an enmity not so much engendered by conviction, perhaps, as inflamed by the fact that some of his property had been seized at Jiddah at the instigation of some Roman Catholic priests, who had through his influence been plundered, ill-treated, and expelled from Abyssinia. When the intelligence reached the Abouna that Lij Kassa was marching against Tigré, he publicly excommunicated him, on the ground that Kassa was the friend of the Roman Catholics, protected their Bishop, De Jacobis, and wanted to subvert in favour of the creed of Rome the religion of the land. But Kassa was a match for the Abouna; he denied the charge, and at the same time stated "that if Abouna Salama could excommunicate, Abouna de Jacobis could remove it." The Bishop, alarmed at the influence his enemies might possibly obtain, offered to recall his anathema, on condition that Kassa would expel De Jacobis. These terms having been agreed upon, Abouna Salama shortly afterwards consented to place the crown of Abyssinia on the usurper's head, and did so in the very church Oubié had erected for his own coronation, under the name of Theodore II.