These steps having been taken, a proclamation was now issued, "that all soldiers of the province of Tigré, or who had borne arms under Ras Michael, should, on the morrow, before midday, bring their arms, offensive and defensive, and deliver them up, on a spot fixed upon near the church of Ledata, to commissaries appointed for the purpose of receiving them;" with farther intimation to the inhabitants of Gondar, "that any arms found in any house in that town after noon of the day of proclamation, should subject the owner of such house and arms to death, and the house or houses to be razed to their foundation." Six thousand of the Tigré troops belonging to the ras's province at once laid down their arms; all the rest of the principal officers followed, and even the king's arms were surrendered. The ras, too brave to fear and too infirm to escape, resolutely continued in the house belonging to his office. He ate, drank, and slept as usual; rose, and, talking of the event with equanimity and apparent indifference, dressed himself as richly as possible in gold stuff; and then, with the utmost composure, awaited his death. Once only, when he heard that his disarmed troops had been treated with indignity by the populace, did he for a moment give vent to his feelings: he then burst into tears, exclaiming, "Before this, I could have died happy!" The king also behaved with no little firmness and composure: he had eaten nothing during the first day but some wheaten bread, which he divided with the few servants that remained about him. A body of lawless Galla troops, entering Gondar unobserved, rushed into the palace and into the presence of the king, before whom Bruce and two attendants were seated on the floor. The room, in the days of the luxury and splendour of the Abyssinian court, had been magnificently hung with mirrors, which had been brought at great expense from Venice. The largest of these was immediately smashed by the Galla; and they would probably have proceeded to murder the king and Bruce, had not two hundred young men of Gondar, hearing that these savages had got into the palace, rushed forward to defend their king, and obliged them to retire. On the 1st of June Gusho and Powussen came to the house of Ras Michael, to interrogate him as to his past conduct. They found him clothed in white serge, with a priest's cowl of the same material on his head; and the old ras, seeing that his power was gone, and that ferocity and high personal courage could no longer avail him, resolved to save himself by hypocrisy now that he could no longer do it by force: he therefore declared that "he had ended his political career," and should devote the remainder of his days to peace, penitence, meditation, and prayer. Gusho and Powussen listened to him in sullen silence, and then proceeded to the king's palace, where it was determined that Gusho should be ras.