She wrote to Soliman pressing letters. The pacha, who was by no means anxious to irritate the Assassins, answered courteously, but evasively, that the troops would not be able to endure a winter campaign in the Ansaries Mountains, but in the spring he would do all that was possible to meet her wishes. Like the fleet sloughis which roll themselves up before relaxing their iron muscles and springing forward, Lady Hester paused to anchor her resolution for ever; then, in a flash, she launched herself towards the goal, but without deigning to cast a glance at the dangers which rose at each step in advance.
The spring blossomed again; Soliman made no move. Lady Hester judged it prudent to refresh his memory, and set out for St. Jean d'Acre with all her servants, covered with armour and costly apparel. To strike the Oriental imagination and convey a lofty idea of her rank and her power, she displayed all the luxury which her resources permitted her. She went straight to Soliman's palace, caused the doors to be opened to her, and made her way so far as the council-chamber where the pacha sat.
She penetrated the crowd, called for silence, explained publicly what had brought her and demanded vengeance. Soliman, astonished, but immovable, lavished compliments and presents upon her. She treated them with contempt, and tried the effects of flying into a great passion, the more redoubtable, inasmuch as she had intended and prepared it, and withdrew, in the midst of general consternation, threatening the pacha with the anger of the Sultan.
Mr. Catafago, the Austrian consul, had offered her his house. Next day Soliman sent to ask her to wait upon him; she refused. As, at the same time, the French authorities at Constantinople began to make a stir, the pacha decided that it was better to allow his hand to be forced. Lady Hester had gained the day.
But there was no question of a simple military promenade. The struggle would be a fierce one, and trained soldiers and an experienced leader were required. Soliman withdrew all the garrison of his pashalik and gave the command to Mustapha Barbar, the energetic Governor of Tripoli. Lady Hester, who followed with increasing interest the mobilisation of the troops, of "her troops," sent him a pair of magnificent English pistols.
"I arm thee, my knight," she wrote. "I have reason to complain of the Ansaries, who have massacred one of my brothers. I hope that these pistols will never fail anyone, that they will protect thy days and will avenge the cause of thy friend."
The choice of Mustapha Barbar was excellent. A brave general and a rigid Mohammedan of sincere conviction, he hated the Assassins with all his soul. He made vibrate amongst his soldiers the religious cord always so dangerous to touch in the East. In a state of religious exaltation, they set out for a holy war, and nothing was to stop them in their work of destruction. No quarter, no mercy. To slay an Assassin was to glorify the Prophet.
The enemy lay in ambush everywhere. Every rock concealed an assailant. Every abyss enticed death. It was necessary to carry the mountain piece by piece, tree by tree, house by house. Booty and blood rendered the fanaticism of the Turks the more violent. The old men and children who fell into their clutches were pitilessly massacred, the women sold as slaves. As for the prisoners, there was none of them.
The mountaineers, surrounded in their lairs, cut off in their last fortresses, perceived with horror that the fierce renown of the Ansaries was crumbling away. Mustapha Barbar ventured to attack one of those savage fortresses at the Kalaat el Kaf, which stood out like a defiance on a cluster of sharp-pointed rocks. Jealously the mountain concealed it, surrounded it, fondled it. For it, it sharpened its broken stones, it made denser its thickets. For it, it multiplied its traps, its slippery burrows, its deep ravines, its treacherous marches. All that Nature could invent to oppose to the march of man, she had lavished in its defiles. Three torrents defended the approach to it, and their beds were deadly and their high banks precipitous.
Nevertheless, Mustapha Barbar, in traversing the bottom of the valley where the foot sank as in a pulp of slimy and poisonous toad-stools, evoked the clear-skinned and blonde Englishwoman, his lady. He took the fortress; he destroyed it from top to bottom and razed its ramparts. He violated the sacred tombs of the Assassins, throwing into the torrents the ashes of the Imans. It is then that the Tartar, bearer of the heads of the vanquished which had been despatched to Constantinople, returned in all haste with an order to put a stop to the butchery. Fifty-two villages burned. Three hundred Assassins massacred.... Lady Hester had been well avenged of Colonel Boutin!