In Begemder plundering was out of the: question; the peasants were always on the watch, and on the slightest sign of a move were everywhere on the alert, killing the stragglers and plunderers, and keeping out of the way of the gunmen who stood around the Emperor. Theodore remembered a rich district not as yet plundered, Belessa, at the north-east of Begemder. In order to surprise the inhabitants completely, he proclaimed some days before that he was going on an expedition in quite a different direction, and to make his army appear as formidable as possible, he had given orders that every one who possessed a horse or a mule, or a servant, must send them, under penalty of death, to accompany the expedition. The Belessa people, far from being surprised, had been informed of his intention by their spies, and Theodore, to his disappointment, saw from a distance their villages on fire; the peasants themselves having preferred destroying their homes to leaving them a prey to the invader. Under the conduct of a gallant chief, Lij Abitou, a young man of good family, and a runaway officer, from the Imperial household, the peasants, well armed, took up a position on a small plateau, separated by a narrow ravine from the route Theodore would take. To his surprise, instead of running away at the mere sight of his charger, they not only stood their ground, but several well-mounted chiefs rode out in front and bid defiance to Theodore himself. Astrologers must have told him that the day was not favourable, as after several of his chiefs who had answered the cartel had been laid dead on the field, he still refused to lead his men in person, and before this unexpected resistance gave way and ordered a retreat. Belessa was saved: the hungry, famished robbers that Theodore called soldiers passed a dreadful night; tired, hungry, and cold, they could not sleep, for the peasants might surprise and attack them, in their turn. The cruelties Theodore perpetrated after his return to Debra Tabor were fearful; too horrible to be related. At last, tired of taking his revenge on the innocent, he turned his thoughts to the place he might most easily plunder, and fixed upon the island of Metraha.