December 16.—The last three days Lady Hester had suffered greatly. To-day she was in very low spirits, and sobbed aloud and wrung her hands, while she bitterly deplored her deserted state. “I believe it will do me good to cry,” she said, and she gave way freely to her emotions; but her weeping was not woman-like: it had a wild howl about it, that was painful to me to hear; she seemed not to be made of stuff for tears: and, if Bellona could have ever wept, she must have wept in this way. After she had given vent to her feelings, she gradually recovered, and her natural fecundity of language returned.
December 17.—Christmas day was approaching, but the weather was of extraordinary mildness. Some idea may be formed of the climate of Syria from the circumstance that my house had no glass to the windows, and that the family sat always with the doors open. It was only during the heavy rains that the rooms felt chilly, and then a brazier, with lighted coals, was agreeable and quite sufficient to obviate the cold.
Lady Hester made me observe how thin she had become. Her bones almost protruded through her skin, and she could not lie comfortably in any posture; so that it was difficult for her to get rest. Her fretfulness had increased to such a degree as to be equally distressing to herself and to those about her: yet the vigour of her mind never forsook her for a moment when anything called for its exertion.
December 20.—was a rainy day, and, when I entered her ladyship’s chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy one. She was seated in the corner of the room, her features indicating great suffering. She burst into tears the moment I approached her. She had not slept the whole night, and had passed the hours, from the time I left her, in getting up and walking about supported by her women, and then lying down again, seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression which so much distressed her. The floor of the bed-room was covered with plates, pots, and pans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and forks, spoons, and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.
I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester’s request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for his comforts. He was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his mind was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into from a belief that he could interpret the prophecies in the Bible. He was constantly poring over that book, and he went very generally by the name of the Prophet: Lady Hester herself always called him so. He had a maid-servant to take care of him, a barber, on fixed days, to shave him. Lamb, mutton, or beef, flour for his bread, and wine, were sent as his consumption required, money being liberally furnished him for purchasing everything else from Sayda.
Finding that he was very much neglected by the woman who was appointed to attend him, I mentioned the fact on my return to Lady Hester, and to this communication was to be attributed the extraordinary display on the floor of her bed-room; for, from her accustomed sensibility to the sufferings of others, she had fancied that the poor man was in want of everything. “See,” she said, “what I am reduced to: ever since daylight this morning” (and it was then nearly noon) “have I been handling pots and pans to make the Prophet comfortable. For on whom can I depend?—on these cold people—a pack of stocks and stones, who rest immoveable amidst their fellow-creatures’ sufferings? Why did not you give that woman a dressing? I’ll have her turned out of the village—an impudent hussy!”
Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized with a spasm in the throat and chest, and, making a sudden start, “Some water, some water! make haste!” she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost suffocated. I handed her some immediately, which she greedily drank: I then threw the window open, and she became better. “Don’t leave me, doctor: ring the bell;—I can’t bear to be left alone a moment; for, if one of these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring the bell, what could I do? You must forgive me if I fall into these violent passions; but such is my nature: I can’t help it. I am like the horse that Mr. Pitt had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and his pace is so easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you thwart him or contradict him, he is unmanageable;’—that’s me.”
But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet—as his name has already appeared several times, it may not be amiss to give a short outline of his life, the particulars of which he communicated to me himself. From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one day, a young man, about twenty-four years of age, sallied forth, he knew not whither, to seek his fortune. Sprung from a family of peasants, he had received little or no education, and had nothing to depend on but his well-knitted frame, an intelligent and handsome countenance, robust health, and activity. He directed his steps towards one of the great sea-ports of France, resolved to work his passage to America. But, when walking the quays and inquiring for a vessel bound across the Atlantic, he was told there was none; there was, however, a large merchant-ship freighting for the East Indies. Learning that the country she was chartered for was still more distant than the western colonies, he concluded, in his ardent and youthful mind, that it would open to him a still greater chance of meeting with adventures and of enriching himself. He accordingly got himself rated to work his passage as a seaman, and arrived in safety at the ship’s destination.
It would be useless to occupy the reader’s time with the struggles which every man, unknown and without recommendations, has to make on a foreign shore, before he gets a footing in some shape congenial to his talents or his inclination. Natural talents Loustaunau had; for, in the space of a few months after his arrival on the Indian coast, he was spoken of as an intelligent young man to the French ambassador, Monsieur de Marigny, residing at Poonah, the Mahratta court, as far as I could understand: since it is to be borne in mind that Mr. Loustaunau, when he related all this, was eighty years old, had almost lost his memory, and was relapsing into second childhood. He soon after became an inmate of the embassy, on terms of some familiarity with Monsieur de Marigny, who discovered, in the young adventurer’s conversation, so much good sense and elevation of mind, that he used to say to him, “It strikes me that you are no common man.”
It so happened that the war between the English and the Rajah of the Mahrattas brought the hostile armies into the field at no great distance from Poonah; and Mr. L. one day told the ambassador, that, as he had never seen what war was, and had not far to go to do so, he should be much obliged if he would permit him to absent himself for a short time to be spectator of the action, which, report said, must soon take place between the two armies. Monsieur de M. tried to dissuade him from it, asking him of what use it would be to risk his life for the satisfaction of an empty curiosity. Mr. L.’s reply was, “If I am killed, why then bon jour, and there will be an end of me:” M. de Marigny, therefore, complied with his wishes, and sent him with some of his own people and an introductory letter, to General Norolli, a Portuguese, who commanded the Rajah Scindeah’s artillery.