I remember one of them springing upon my horse and the poor beast's scream.

Then I remember no more till I found myself--I believe it was a week or so later--lying on the verandah of a nice house, and being attended by some good-looking women of an Abyssinian cast of countenance." "Sounds rather like one of the lost tribes of Israel," remarked Higgs sarcastically, puffing at his big meerschaum.
"Yes, something of that sort.

The details I will give you later.

The main facts are that these people who picked me up outside their gates are called Abati, live in a town called Mur, and allege themselves to be descended from a tribe of Abyssinian Jews who were driven out and migrated to this place four or five centuries ago.

Briefly, they look something like Jews, practise a very debased form of the Jewish religion, are civilized and clever after a fashion, but in the last stage of decadence from interbreeding--about nine thousand men is their total fighting force, although three or four generations ago they had twenty thousand--and live in hourly terror of extermination by the surrounding Fung, who hold them in hereditary hate as the possessors of the wonderful mountain fortress that once belonged to their forefathers." "Gibraltar and Spain over again," suggested Orme.
"Yes, with this difference--that the position is reversed, the Abati of this Central African Gibraltar are decaying, and the Fung, who answer to the Spaniards, are vigorous and increasing." "Well, what happened ?" asked the Professor.
"Nothing particular.