Unconsciously also, a mysterious reason urged Lady Hester to choose Syria, and particularly Jerusalem, for the theatre of her exploits. It was nothing less than a prediction of Brothers. A figure strange, this Brothers, who created a sensation towards the end of the eighteenth century.
A former lieutenant in the Navy, his imagination became disordered in meditating upon the most obscure passages of the Apocalypse; the endless leisure which voyages permit are truly pernicious for feeble minds.... He soon abandoned his career and modestly assumed the title of "Nephew of God and Prince of the Hebrews," consecrating himself entirely to the divine mission which he believed he had received. He lived in an agreeable hallucination. "After which, being in a vision," said he, "I saw the angel of God by my side, and Satan, who was walking carelessly in the streets of London." Even when quite mad the English preserve a sense of humour!
So long as Brothers contented himself with predicting the approaching destruction of London and the restoration of the Kingdom of Judea, the Government did not trouble, but the situation changed when the vague prophecies were transformed into imperious advice to the King:
"The Eternal God commands me to make known to you, George III, King of England, that immediately after the revelation of my person to the Hebrews of London as their prince, and to all the nations as their governor, you must lay down your crown, in order that all your power and your authority may cease."
But no time was lost in sending this troublesome person to Bedlam. Before going, he bestirred himself so much and to such good purpose to obtain a visit from Lady Hester that this singular request reached the ears of Pitt's niece. Curious to make the acquaintance of the prophet, she hastened to accede to his wish. Brothers solemnly predicted to her that "she would go one day to Jerusalem, and would lead the Chosen People; that on her arrival in the Holy Land there would be upheavals in the world and that she would pass seven years in the desert." While she was rusticating at Brousse, two Englishmen, who were passing through it and who knew the prophecy, amused themselves about her great future. "You will go to Jerusalem, Lady Hester," said they; "you will go. Esther, Queen of the Jews! Hester, Queen of the Jews!"
Did the coincidence of the names strike her, or did this programme fascinate her by its novelty? Did she consider Brothers as an inoffensive lunatic or as a visionary of genius? She was not yet the sorceress of Djoun, believing firmly in magicians and enchanted serpents. But many sensible men, such as William Sharp, who had even given to the world a fine engraving of the prophet, with these words: "Believing firmly that this is the man chosen of God, I have engraved his portrait," and as Mr. Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, an Indian official and translator of the code of Geptoo laws, if it please you, had publicly proclaimed themselves his disciples.
However that may be, Lady Hester took, with the handsome Colonel Bruce, the road to Jerusalem, wearing the costume of the Egyptian Mamelukes: short bolero of red satin, purple tunic without sleeves, gallooned with gold, wide trousers of which the multiple folds had the thickness of drapery, cashmere shawl twisting like a turban around her head. All that formed a symphony of red, which blazed forth when she partially opened the great white burnous which hid her entirely during her ramblings on horseback. They only proceeded so far as Jaffa; Jaffa which bathes the foot of its dirty houses in the sea, and which the pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, after the Easter festival, fill with confusion and noise, transforming the little dead town of fishermen into a comical fair in which all the idioms of creation are entangled.
They were received by the English consular agent. He was a person called Damiani, a compromise between the patriarch and the Italian merchant, but in which the patriarch held the upper hand, an active man of sixty, wearing a singular costume: an old Eastern robe of sky-blue, lined with ermine, dirty trousers from which burst out two grey legs, head-dress à la française, that is to say, hair worn in a thick iron-grey queue, and above all ... above all, an immense three-cornered hat, polished by the years, soaked with sweat and dust since the Egyptian campaign. Three-cornered hat which was to amuse royally the Princess of Wales during her famous journey to Jerusalem, and which was to make Alphonse de Lamartine smile gently twenty years later.
Mohammed Aga, Governor of Jaffa, believing that it was an affair of some pious lady of little importance, was hardly civil and did not facilitate in any way the organisation of the caravan. Lady Hester never forgave him.
On May 18, 1812, eleven camels and thirteen horses left the town, conveying the travellers, save Pearce, who was keeping apart. By Gudd and Ramle they made their way towards the Holy City. It was harvest-time. Armed with short reaping-hooks, the peasants cut the barley, fresh barley which formed in the arid landscape islets of shade and points of velvet on which the eye lingered. Naked gold-coloured children followed the horses to offer some ears of corn in exchange for a serious backsheesh, and the doctor, in throwing them the piastres, declared sadly that no people knew better how to extort presents.