I landed my luggage; and was somewhat surprised when the captain demanded payment for my passage, Mâlem Surûr having insisted, before my departure, that no mention should be made on that subject, the vessel being his. However, when he afterwards heard what the räis had done, he made him refund the money, and sent it back again to me. I hired some mules; and, on the following evening, reached Abra, after an absence of three months.
Having made some few arrangements at Abra, I rode up to Meshmûshy, where Lady Hester still was, on the fifth of November, accompanied by Abu Yusef Jahjah, the proprietor of the house at Meshmûshy, who happened to have been at Sayda on business. At Kefferfelûs, a village on our road, he said he had an old acquaintance where we might breakfast: but the good lady (for her husband was away) produced nothing but eggs fried in oil, which she boasted of as some of the best tefáh oil in the country. Tefáh oil means oil skimmed off by the hands from the surface of the water in which the olives have been boiled, in opposition to the other manner, in which it is pressed, and supposed to be less pure.
CHAPTER X.
Disappearance of Colonel Boutin, a French traveller—Efforts of Lady Hester Stanhope, for investigating his fate—Mission of Abd el Rasák from Mahannah to Lady Hester—Manners and character of the Bedouins—Story of Mustafa Aga, Khasnadár of Mûly Ismael, and his wife—Departure of Abd el Rasák and his companions.
I found Lady Hester in tolerable health: but her mind was at this time wholly intent on avenging the death of Colonel Boutin, a Frenchman, whose name and destination will be seen by referring to the occurrences in March of the preceding year, and who had been made away with in his journey from Hamah to Latakia. As one of the most useful purposes to which Lady Hester turned the influence which she enjoyed in this country is connected with his fate, it would be inexcusable were this affair not to be related at length.
Colonel Boutin departed from Hamah for Latakia, accompanied by his Egyptian groom and by another Mahometan servant. He had written to M. Guys, French consul at Latakia, to intimate that, to avoid the circuitous route of Geser Shogr, he should cut strait across the mountains inhabited by the Ansárys.[80] He slept at Shyzer, departed on the following morning, and was heard of no more.
For many weeks, M. Guys supposed that, like other travellers, he had loitered on the road, or had turned aside to view objects which had taken his attention; but, at last, when no information was received of him from any quarter, rumours of his death began to spread, and reached Lady Hester’s ears. She expected, for some time, that an application would have been made to the pasha to order an inquiry into the circumstances which attended his mysterious disappearance; but, when it was evident that no steps had been taken, she resolved to investigate the matter herself. For she considered that the common cause of travellers, without regard to nation, required that robbery, and much more murder, should not be suffered to pass unpunished; and she respected Colonel Boutin individually as a man of distinguished abilities.
For this purpose she resolved on employing Signor Volpi, the Italian doctor, who had been left to supply my place on my departure for Egypt. Signor Volpi, it was reported, had been originally bred within the pale of the church, but, taking advantage of the tumults of the French revolution, had danced round the Tree of Liberty, and had quitted the cell for the more lucrative employment of the law: which, together with his country, he had finally deserted for physic and Syria. There, not meeting with the encouragement which he thought he merited, he had recourse to his pen, and was for some time clerk to Signor Catsiflitz, English agent at Tripoli. Lady Hester had, during my absence, observed in him a great knowledge of the bad side of men, and she pitched on him as a proper person to go to Hamah to find out what he could respecting Colonel Boutin’s fate.
She had retained in her service, as muleteer to the house, ever since her journey to Bâlbec, a Drûze named Sulymàn, a hardy and resolute fellow, fit for dangerous enterprises. This man she resolved to send in the very track, through the Ansáry mountains, that Colonel Boutin was supposed to have pursued, accompanied by Pierre, who was well adapted, under a feigned object of pedlary or of buying oil, to pass as a poor Christian gaining a livelihood by such traffic.
These three persons, so instructed, had already fulfilled their missions: and, on my arrival from Egypt, Lady Hester was disposed to have made me acquainted with the progress of this affair, and to have requested my help; when I, perhaps too officiously, took upon me to dissuade her from prosecuting it; saying that the French consuls were bound to sift it to the bottom: whilst she, in taking so active a part, was exposing herself, in her excursions about the country, and even in her rides, to the vengeance of these mountaineers, who, there was every reason to think, were as likely to have emissaries sworn to their deadly purposes now as of old.[81]