Masuah was in this disturbed state, when information was received there from Jidda that a prince, a very near relation of the King of England, a person who was no trader, but, strange to say, was travelling only to visit different countries and people, was about to arrive at Masuah in his way to Abyssinia. When this intelligence arrived, the naybe and his councillors assembled to determine what was to be done with the English prince. Several proposed that he should at once be put to death, and his property divided among themselves. This expeditious and customary mode of receiving a stranger at Masuah was opposed by others, who more prudently recommended that they should first see what letters the stranger might bring with him, lest, by murdering him, they should add fuel to the fire with which Ras Michael and the Pasha of Jidda had already threatened to consume them. But Achmet, the naybe's nephew, nobly maintained that, whether the stranger had letters or not, his rank ought to protect him; that to murder him would be to act like banditti; that a sufficient quantity of the blood of strangers had been already shed; and that, in his opinion, it had brought the curse of poverty upon the place. He observed, also, that he had heard of a salute which had been fired at Jidda in compliment to this stranger, and he remarked that half that number of ships and guns would lay Masuah and Arkeeko as desolate as Ras Michael had already threatened to leave them. Achmet therefore proposed that the Englishman should be received and treated with marks of consideration, until, on inspecting his letters and conversing with him, they might be able to judge what sort of a person he was, and on what errand he came; and that, if it should turn out that he was one of those foreign disturbers of the country who had heretofore occasioned so much trouble, then, indeed, they might treat him with as much severity as they pleased. There was both eloquence and prudence in Achmet's speech; besides which, he was the heir-apparent of his uncle the naybe. His opinion and arguments were therefore approved of by all, and it was agreed that the fate of the English prince should be left at his disposal. Bruce was always of opinion that the salute with which he had been honoured in the port of Jidda was the means of saving his life on his landing in Abyssinia; and, if so, it may fairly be said that his own good conduct, which had obtained for him this mark of the approbation of his countrymen, was, under Providence, the cause of his escaping alive from Masuah, that slaughter-house of strangers.