<[f. 180v/170v]> Chapter VI Which reports the history of Emperor Adamâs Çaguêd as the books of Ethiopia tell it

The baptismal name of this emperor was Minâs, which means ‘Faithful’, but when they gave him the empire they called him Adamâs Çaguêd. He was raised and taught well in the house of his father, Lebena Denguîl, but, God permitting, he fell into the hands of the Moor Granh, who captured him. While he was a captive, the people of the camp loved him dearly, and therefore some captains told Granh that it was necessary to think carefully what to do with that son of the emperor, because many of the people in his camp were Christians, and those that had become Moors had done so out of fear, and so the hearts of both the latter {[f. 335v]} and the others were with him, and they would therefore undoubtedly raise him as emperor. On hearing this, Granh was disturbed, like Herod when the wise men asked about the king of the Jews. He assembled his counsellors, told them what he had heard and asked what they thought; they all answered that he should show no mercy towards him but kill him, because otherwise he would never have peace. He later told his wife what they had counselled him, but she, who always defended him, replied that he should not do such a thing but should instead be good to him, since he was the emperor’s son, so that God would be good to his own son, and, if he wanted to calm his heart, he should marry him to a daughter that they had. And she gave him so many reasons that he decided to do so. But while they were preparing the necessary things for the wedding, a Moor by the name of Xafêr-Din went to him and said, ‘Did you perhaps wish to give your honour to the stranger and deliver the kingdom to its owner? If you give him your daughter, it will seem to the people in the camp that you have given up your empire to him and everyone will leave you and go off to him. And then you will regret this, but you will not be able to go back and recover what you have given up willingly,’ Then Granh said, ‘So what do you think will be best?’ To which he replied, ‘You see that the Portuguese have come, and you cannot fight them without Turks. I think it would be best for you to send this boy as a present to the pasha of Zebîd, asking him to send you some fighting men to help you.’ Granh also thought so, and therefore he stopped the wedding that he was preparing and sent him to the pasha in the charge of one of the <[f. 181/171]> great men of his camp, together with two of his cousins, who were both called Lâc Mariâm, whom he had previously made eunuchs. When he left the camp, everybody was very sad, and especially the household of Granh’s wife, Delombarâ, wept and wailed because she loved him dearly. On the journey he fell sick with such a high fever that it seemed he would die, but not even this made those who were taking him have any pity on him, but rather they made him travel as fast as possible by changing camels. And one day his camel walked faster than usual since it was very thirsty, and, going ahead of the people who were taking him, he turned onto another road by chance and was lost for six days, and on the seventh he again came across those bad people from whom he had been separated.