The Shum complained violently that we had left Addergey without his leave, and now were attacking him in his own government upon the high-road. “A pretty situation,” said I, “was ours at Addergey, where the Shum left the king’s stranger no other alternative but dying with hunger, or being ate by the hyæna.” “This is not your government,” says Janni’s servant; “you know my master, Ayto Aylo, commands here.”--“And who is attacking you on the road?” says the Sirè servant. “Is it like peaceable people, or banditti, to come mounted on horseback and armed as you are? Would not your mules and your foot-servants have been as proper? and would not you have been better employed, with the king and Ras Michael, fighting the Galla, as you gave your promise, than here molesting passengers on the road?”--“You lie,” says the Shum, “I never promised to go with your Ras;” and on this he lifted up his whip to strike Welleta Michael’s servant; but that fellow, though quiet enough, was not of the kind to be beaten. “By G--d! Shum,” says he, “offer to strike me again, and I will lay you dead among your horse’s feet, and my master will say I did well. Never call for your men; you should have taken the red slip off your gun before you came from home to-day to follow us. Why, if you was to shoot, you would be left alone in our hands, as all your fellows on the other side would run at the noise even of your own gun. “Friends, said I, you understand one another’s grievances better than I do. My only business here is to get to Lamalmon as soon as possible. Now, pray, Shum, tell me what is your business with me? and why have you followed me beyond your government, which is bounded by that river?”--He said, “That I had stolen away privately, without paying custom.”--“I am no merchant, replied I; I am the king’s guest, and pay no custom; but as far as a piece of red Surat cotton cloth will content you, I will give it you, and we shall part friends.”--He then answered, “That two ounces of gold were what my dues had been rated at, and would either have that, or he would follow me to Debra Toon.”--“Bind him and carry him to Debra Toon, says the Siré servant, or I shall go and bring the Shum of Debra Toon to do it. By the head of Michael, Shum, it shall not be long before I take you out of your bed for this.”