In January 1815, Lady Hester returned to Mar-Elias. Scarcely had she alighted from her donkey than she received horrible news, brought back from Bairout by Beaudin: a Capugi Bachi had arrived, demanding her with hue and cry! Everyone knows that a Capugi Bachi does not come into a province except to give orders for strangulation, hanging, imprisonment and the bastinado, never for an agreeable object. Lady Hester smiled slyly and sent a pressing message to the Capugi Bachi, who arrived at the end of dinner. Beaudin and Meryon, who had decorated their girdles with pistols, regarded with a hostile eye this little man who came to disturb their digestion. They were far from expecting the reality.
An attack of plague would have sufficed as occupation to the average woman; nevertheless, it was during her illness that Lady Hester drew up a plan of campaign around an old manuscript which had fallen by chance into her hands, and which indicated the site where fabulous riches had been concealed in the ruins of Sidon and Ascalon. Treasures? Nothing was impossible. In the East the inhabitants possess no certainty of preserving their property. Deprived of banks, deprived of paper-money easy to handle, subject to the arbitrary will of avaricious governors, living in the midst of perpetual wars and troubles—in twenty years Tripoli had been besieged five times and five times sacked—they have only one resource: a good and mysterious hiding-place, unknown to all and particularly to their women.
Moreover, the people divided European travellers into three categories: exiles, spies and treasure-seekers. Lady Hester strongly suspected the Porte of laying a trap for her, but it was too dangerous to place herself in the first categories of foreigners, and she played the part of one who believed in the manuscript. A little time afterwards, she was to believe in it in reality and blindly.
To finish gaining the Turkish Government, she begged Sir Robert Liston, British Ambassador, to present the project to the Reis Effendi, insisting on the fact that all the money would belong to the Sultan; she reserved only for herself the glory of the discoveries. As for the expenses, nothing was more simple; England would pay the bill. "If the Government refuses," said she, "I shall send it to the newspapers. It is a right and certainly not a favour. Sir Edward Paget, when Ambassador at Vienna, made Mr. Pitt pay him £70,000 for the liveries of his servants during four years. I do not see why I should not do the same thing."
The Turkish Government, delighted at an affair in which there would be everything to gain and nothing to lose, immediately despatched Darwish Mustapha Aga Capugi Bachi, who was to place himself under Lady Hester's orders and to invest her with an authority which no European ambassador or non-official Christian had ever had, and still less a woman. He was the bearer of firmans for the Pacha of Acre, for the Pacha of Damascus and for all the governors of Syria.
Scarcely disembarked from Baalbeck, Lady Hester launched into a formidable and arduous undertaking. But she adored action. And then what excitement to command! What joy to reign without control over these Orientals created and placed in the world to obey! General-in-chief on the eve of delivering battle, she despatched messengers. Quick! a line to Malim Musa, of Hama, who will be her good counsellor and will watch the Capugi Bachi: "You know that I do not travel by roundabout ways; an urgent affair calls for your presence at Acre." Quick! a letter to Soliman Pacha to explain the matter to him and to demand his help.
Mar-Elias, transformed into headquarters, resounded with the galloping of horses which were departing or arriving, resounded with a thousand orders which intersected one another from morning till evening. The excitement increased. The grooms kept their animals in readiness for departure. Giorgio and the Capugi Bachi went to Acre to reconnoitre. Beaudin recruited mules. The doctor gained Damascus with all speed to procure what was wanting for the expedition, and found time to see Fatimah again, but a Fatimah marked by the plague, with eyes grown dull and sallow face.
Lady Hester's caravan followed the coast. At St. Jean d'Acre the curious admiration of the crowd was transformed into a salutary fear for the Syt who enjoyed so much influence at the Court of the Sultan. The doctor, who had naturally remained behind and naturally been overtaken by a storm—already in returning from Damascus he had been buried in a tempest of snow—arrived soaked and in a bad temper at the encampment at Haifa, and was disagreeably surprised to find in the dining-tent a rough and dirty individual.
Rather tall, with bold and haughty features and the remains of good looks travestied by dirt, he wore long and dirty hair and a Spanish surtout of the most shabby description. His mutilated left hand was making ostensible efforts to disappear beneath a red handkerchief, while his right hand flourished a Bible recklessly.
General Loustaunau presented himself to the considerably astonished doctor, who recognised him, by his way of saluting, for a Frenchman.