IN THE COUNTRY OF DJEZZAR PACHA
AND THE EMIR BECHIR
ST. JEAN D'ACRE stretches out into the sea like a greyhound which
stretches himself lazily in the sun. The tiny harbour seemed to have
been scooped out to satisfy the caprice of some royal child. The mosque,
Jama-el-Geydd, darted towards the sky, throwing like an imperious prayer
its threatening minaret, and the multitude of the palm-trees crowded
around it. And when the evening brought the sea breeze, they lamented
and moaned like men, and the hushed waters in their marble fountains
wept in distant echo in the sacred court. This mosque was one of the
most beautiful of the Syrian coast, the antique debris of Ascalon and
Cæsarea having covered with diversified mosaics, porphyry and jade the
walls and floor. Amidst the verdure of the inner gardens roamed in a
blaze of red and yellow flowers, the basins of painted earthenware, the
santons and the tombs.
Lady Hester was the guest of Mr. Catafago, a personage in Syria, whom
his title of agents of Europeans, his trading and his riches, had
rendered celebrated. With his intelligent and keen countenance, his air
of authority, his flashing eyes, this man had acquired an extraordinary
ascendency over the Arabs and the Turks. It was he who facilitated
Lamartine's journey in the Holy Land, and rendered it, if not
comfortable, at least possible.
Lady Hester, in strolling through the town, was astonished to meet a
number of people with faces atrociously mutilated. Some had no nose; to
others a ear was wanting, sometimes two; several were one-eyed. Puzzled,
she made inquiries of Hadji Ali, a janissary of St. Jean d'Acre, whom
she had promoted to the high rank of inspector of the luggage. Former
soldier of Djezzar Pacha, he had his memory haunted by nightmare
visions, and related concerning his master ghastly stories. Although he
had been dead for four years, the inhabitants were hardly beginning to
emerge from the Red Terror under which they had lived and to breathe
more freely. Ahmed Djezzar was born in Bosnia. At the age of sixteen he
left Bosnia and went to Constantinople, and afterwards to Cairo. There,
bought by Ali Bey for his Mamelukes, he specialised with so much
enthusiasm in missions of assassination that he acquired his redoubtable
surname of Djezzar (slaughterer). Having, by chance, refused to put to
death a friend of Ali, he took to flight to escape his vengeance.
He made his way to the Druses, where he received hospitality from the
Emir Yusef, who appointed him Aga, then governor of Bairout. Djezzar
betrayed him. Yusef, furious, made an alliance with Dahers, sheik of one
of the Arab tribes of the coast. Besieged in the town, Djezzar defended
himself like a devil, walled up twenty Christians alive in his walls to
render them more solid, and surrendered finally to Dahers, who,
fascinated by his courage, gave him his friendship and the command of an
expedition to Palestine. Unhappy idea! Djezzar went over to the Turks
again. And, a little later, a war having broken out between the pachas
of Syria and the Porte, he was ordered to reduce St. Jean d'Acre. His
knowledge of the country having assured success, he surprised Dahers and
killed him with his own hand.
Appointed afterwards pacha of Acre and Sidon, then of Damascus, he was
able to abandon himself without restraint to his sanguinary tastes and
to his love of butchery. Traitor to his country, to his benefactors,
sold to the highest bidders, vile and dishonourable, he lived peacefully
until the age of eighty-eight, when the dagger of a relative of one of
his numerous victims came to put an end to his exploits.
Amidst the annals of Turkish history, so heavy with murders and cruel
massacres, so stained with blood, so filled with the lamentations of
thousands of unhappy people put to torture, Djezzar's reign shone with a
singular brightness.
Hadji Ali showed Lady Hester the pavilion which Djezzar Pacha usually
occupied. He used to have his divan placed near the window and to watch
the street. Did he catch sight of a passer-by whose face, clothing or
figure displeased him, he sent to fetch him. If the unhappy man
attempted resistance, the officer, who did not care to incur his
master's anger, used force. When he was brought, more dead than alive,
before Djezzar, the latter said to him: "Thy face does not please me,"
or, "Thou hast an evil eye," or again, in turning towards the
executioner, who followed him like his shadow: "A fellow so ugly is
unworthy to live; he is surely a child of the devil." And for love of
art he caused ears, noses and heads to be cut off.
Sometimes he showed an amiable caprice. His guards having arrested all
the persons who were passing along the principal street of St. Jean
d'Acre at a certain hour, he had them drawn up on either side of his
divan, indiscriminately, and after having gloated for a time over their
mortal agony, he pronounced sentence in an indifferent voice: "Let the
prisoners on the right be hanged and let an ample breakfast be provided
for those on the left!"
One day, when the barber, who was ordered to pluck out an eye from a
passing stranger, hesitated for a moment, Djezzar said: "Oh! Oh! thou
art squeamish! Perhaps, it is because thou knowest not how to do it.
Come here; I am going to teach thee." And the pacha, plunging the
forefinger of his right hand into the orbit, threw the man's eye on to
his face.
The recital of such atrocities would pass for a tale in the style of
Bluebeard if the slashed faces of hundreds of men did not attest the
frightful reality of it. It is useful for the moment to show how the
varnish of Eastern civilisation cracks to allow us to catch a glimpse of
the abysses of cruelty and barbarism unknown to European mentality.
St. Jean d'Acre was at that time the only town in Syria where the
shopkeepers were not tempted to rob their customers or to use false
weights and false measures. Caught in the act, they were, in fact,
nailed by the tongue to the doors of their shops. The butchers enjoyed
favourable treatment: they were suspended from the crooked iron hooks
intended to suspend the choice morsels.
But the recollection the most horrible, which still caused the narrator
to lower his voice, as though the terrible pacha was concealed in order
to listen to him, was that of the Mameluke mutiny.
Djezzar, as Pacha of Damascus, had every year to escort the pilgrims to
Mecca. He had brought with him half his Mamelukes, about two hundred.
The others remained at St. Jean d'Acre under the command of his
Khasnadar, who had been appointed regent in his absence. Well, the white
beauties of his harem--they numbered a hundred, it was whispered--became
very bored, and the eunuchs, relaxing their vigilance, the Mamelukes
forced the doors of the women's apartments. The Khasnadar reserved for
himself the pacha's favourite, Zulyka. Hardly had the pacha returned
than he found in the ladies of his harem a perceptible change. From
observation to suspicion was but a step, which Djezzar quickly took. The
attitude of the Mamelukes appeared to him suspicious, and he resolved to
make an example which would in future prevent the most bold from
attempting his honour.
In order to separate the innocent from the guilty, he ordered Selim, the
Khasnadar's brother, to assemble the troops at Khan Hasbeiya, giving as
a pretext an expedition against the Emir Yusef. The Hawarys, the
Arnautes, the Dellatis, all the garrison of the town, rejoined their
concentration camps. The two hundred Mamelukes, whom he had mentally
sacrificed, alone remained at St. Jean d'Acre. Proof alone was wanting.
Chance undertook to furnish him with it.
Happening to be one day near the famous window, he saw an old man who,
with a nosegay in his hand, knocked at the door of the harem and handed
it to a slave. Well, flowers are, in the East, the language of love;
letters and messengers are too dangerous to make use of, and carnations,
lilies and roses serve as billets-doux. On entering the women's
apartments, Djezzar saw the nosegay in the hands of the charming Zulyka.
A new Methridates, he compelled Momene to confess her love.
"Come here, little girl," said he to her; "where didst thou get that
nosegay?"
She replied very quickly:
"I gathered it in the garden."
The pacha assumed an indulgent air.
"Come, come!" he rejoined, "I am better informed than thee. I saw the
Christian Nummun who was bringing it. Tell me, my child, who is thy
lover, and I will see if I can give thee him in marriage. I intend to
find a husband for thee."
The imprudent Zulyka took him seriously and mentioned the Khasnadar's
name.
Then, changing countenance, Djezzar rushed upon her and, seizing her by
the hair, dragged her to the ground.
"Wretch!" cried he, "confess the truth. Thou hast already avowed thy
crime, and only the denunciation of thy accomplices can still save
thee."
In vain Zulyka protested and cried out that she was innocent. With a
blow of his scimitar he cut off her head.
An order was given to four Hawarys soldiers, who went into the harem and
began their work of death. At the shrieks of the women, the Mamelukes,
who were in the courtyard of the seraglio, understood that something
serious was happening. Seizing their arms, they shut themselves up in
the Khasnadar's apartments, which formed an isolated tower, provided
with doors studded with iron and solid bars to protect the treasure.
They blocked up all the outlets and waited.
It was then that the drama grew serious. Djezzar, furious, summoned them
to evacuate the place. Their reply was frank.
"We belong to thee, it is true. But thou hast so often steeped thy hands
in human blood, and thou art so thirsty for ours, that our resolution is
irrevocably taken."
And as the powder magazine communicated with the treasury, they added:
"If you attempt to dislodge us, we shall defend ourselves until our
ammunition is exhausted, and then we shall set fire to the powder. And
our death will be followed by the fall of Djezzar and the destruction of
St. Jean d'Acre. But if you allow us to depart safe and sound, we shall
abandon all idea of vengeance, and you will never hear our names
mentioned again."
The pacha fell into a violent rage; some women he caused to be thrown
into a trench filled with quicklime; others were sewn up in sacks and
cast into the sea. The inhabitants lived in mortal terror and burrowed
in their houses.
One night, the Mamelukes, taking the ropes which bound the ingots of
gold, and sawing through the bars, succeeded in effecting their escape,
not without having made a large breach in the treasury. Exhausted,
breathless, their clothes in rags, their hands stained with blood, they
arrived at Khan Hasbeiya. Horrified at the sight they presented, Selim
hastened to take his brother's side. The rebellion spread from place to
place, and all the troops rose in revolt against Djezzar. Allying
themselves with the Druses of Yusef, they seized Sidon and Tyre and
marched on St. Jean d'Acre. Djezzar's situation was critical; but,
though abandoned by all, he remained firm as a rock. His counsellors,
whom his approaching fall incited to courage, urged him to abdicate in
order to save the town from the sufferings of a siege.
"Go, my friends, God will arrange everything," replied he in a bantering
tone, "and I shall have at some not distant day the pleasure of thanking
you for your prudent counsels!"
Understanding the part which morale plays even in the best organised
army, he spread, by the aid of emissaries and spies cleverly instructed,
ideas of defeat in the enemy's camp.
By cunning speeches he gained over to his cause some inhabitants of Acre
who were fit to bear arms, and mingled them with the workmen constantly
employed on the public works. He collected thus a little force which
surprised and overthrew the assailants. The Mamelukes fled beyond the
seas. Djezzar completed the glutting of his wrath by causing the women
who had escaped the massacres to be flogged. They were then thrown naked
into the bottom of the hold of a ship and sold in the slave markets of
Constantinople. The trees of the garden were cut down, and even the cats
of the harem were not spared in the general slaughter. Never had Djezzar
better deserved his name. Then tranquillity returned to the town.
And then one day one of those famous Mamelukes had the audacity to
return to the palace. His name was Soliman. Djezzar recognised him
immediately, and his features assumed such an expression of rage that
all the officers present turned pale and instinctively closed their
eyes.
The pacha brandished his axe.
"Wretch!" cried he. "What have you come to do here?"
"To die at thy feet, for I prefer that fate to that of living at a
distance from thee."
The axe flashed in the light.
"You know well, however, that Djezzar has never pardoned?"
Soliman repeated his answer.
The weapon fell. Twice, thrice, the same words resounded in the frozen
silence. Death prowled about the room. Those present held their breath
as at the pillow of a man at the point of death.
At last the pacha threw down his axe and cried:
"Djezzar will have pardoned for the first time in his life."
By one of those changes of fortune in which destiny delights, this same
Soliman replaced Djezzar as Pachalic of Acre. And no doubt, because he
had experienced the value of mercy, he showed himself as good and as
just as his predecessor had been cruel and licentious.
There are, however, some traits in Djezzar's character which are marked
by a certain humour. When his jests were not addressed to persons
condemned to death or to victims whom he had just caused to be
disfigured, they did not want for wit. Such was the answer which he gave
to a Christian of St. Jean d'Acre.
A merchant lived with his son in a house situated on the seashore. The
ground floor was damp and unhealthy; the first floor airy and dry. The
father lived above, as was right, the son contented himself with the
lower part. To be brief, the son wanted to get married, which was quite
reasonable, and persuaded his father to lend him his apartments for a
fortnight. To this the old man consented readily, but when, on the
sixteenth day, his children showed no disposition to restore him his
lodging, he hazarded a timid protest.
"Allow us another week to enable my wife to get accustomed to the idea
of going downstairs," replied the young husband. But when the week had
passed, and the occupants of the first floor made no more sign than the
dead, the father, whose old bones were beginning to grow mouldy in this
little enviable habitation, made another demand. The son sent him about
his business and announced coldly that each of them would remain in
future where he was, in which he was wrong.
Djezzar, whose intelligence service was admirably conducted, and who
took pleasure in roaming himself about the town, under a disguise, like
the caliphs of former times, learned about the matter.
The son was brought trembling to the palace.
"Of what religion art thou?" roared the pacha in a voice of thunder.
The unhappy man was scarcely able to stammer that he was a Christian.
"Well, show me the sign by which Christians recognise one another."
The young man made the sign of the Cross, bearing his hand to his
forehead, then to his breast: "In the name of the Father, of the
Son ..."
"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Djezzar in a bantering tone. "It seems to me that
thy religion teaches thee that the Father ought to be above and the Son
below. Carry out the rules of thy faith, if thou dost wish that thy head
remains on thy shoulders."
And the father, brought back from his vault immediately, with the stains
of mouldiness which covered his body duly brushed away, found himself in
the dry without knowing the reason.
Lady Hester went to visit the Jew Malem Hazm, Soliman's minister and
banker. He was the fashion at St. Jean d'Acre; he had only one eye and
one ear and no nose. It was recognised that he had lived on terms of
intimacy with the pacha. For his misfortune, he was, in fact, Djezzar's
secretary. The latter had always under his cushions a long list of
people condemned to death, like another little game of society. In a
moment of idleness, he inscribed there Malem Hazm's name; but, thinking
better of it immediately, he commuted the capital penalty to a few
facial mutilations of little importance.
When the Jew reappeared with a countenance reduced to its most simple
expression, Djezzar burst out laughing.
"In truth," he exclaimed, "I should never have believed that thou
wouldst have become so ugly. If I could have doubted it, I would have
left thee thy nose."
Then approaching him and laying his hand on his shoulder, he continued:
"Lucky Malem, you are my friend (he wrote, in fact, to the Porte skilful
letters which, under the velvet of Oriental politeness, made them feel
the threatening steel blade). Give thanks to God! for were it not for
the affection that I bear thee, I should have thy head cut off."
It was a pleasant thing to be one of his friends....
Mr. Catafago acted as interpreter. The conversation was the most cordial
imaginable, and lasted until one o'clock in the morning. Lady Hester and
Malem Hazm retired delighted with each other, and this good impression
continued always. The Jew extolled the kindness of Soliman and inhaled,
like fresh water, the great peace which enveloped St. Jean d'Acre.
Lady Hester went to visit Soliman. The reception was magnificent; the
compliments in the best taste. On her return to Mr. Catafago's house, a
grey horse, the gift of the pacha, was awaiting the visitor.
She liked also to saunter in the fortifications of the town. Of the
three lines of ramparts which encircled it on the land side, the last
was the work of Djezzar. Everything contributed to recall the memory of
the sanguinary pacha. After the siege of St. Jean d'Acre by the French,
understanding that he was indebted for safety to the aid of Sir Sydney
Smith, he determined to become strong enough to defend himself and to be
able to dispense with Allies, who are always an impediment. To realise
his plan, which was formidable, years and hundreds of workmen enrolled
by force were necessary. During those torrid afternoons on which the
hapless wretches toiled under a leaden sky, Djezzar used to appear on
the scene. Immediately, as if by enchantment, the tired stood erect, the
movements of shovel and mattock became quicker, the picks buried
themselves in the ground at shorter intervals. It seemed to all the
workers that an immense jingle of bones filled the yard; the sight of
the pacha conjured up chaplets of ears, necklaces of eyes, pyramids of
heads. And if he uplifted his raucous and thundering voice, the most
weary, the most worn out, became the most active, the most strong. Thus
St. Jean d'Acre became a redoubtable fortress.
Through one of the embrasures, which made a sombre frame, Lady Hester
perceived the sea of a royal blue colour, over which slender vessels
skimmed. This sight recalled to her Sir Sidney Smith. The Commodore was
not extraordinary, after all. Uncle Pitt had found him vain and puffed
up with pride. Had he not pestered him for more than two hours with a
box stuffed with papers, at a time when the Minister had so many things
to do? Lady Hester was very near thinking that all heroes are thus,
apart naturally from General Moore.... Forgetful of the charming
compliments with which Sir Sydney Smith had bestowed on her on her entry
into Society. "The roses and the lilies mingle on your face," said he at
that time, "and the inexpressible charms of your attitude spread
happiness around you." One could not be more gallant. But do not women
remember particularly what has been said to them? Lady Hester considered
it as the proof that one can be brave and a wretched politician. That
happens, and even more often than one thinks.
Soon Mr. Catafago took Lady Hester to pass some time at Nazareth. The
little town, twin sister of the towns of Umbria or Tuscany, dispersed in
terraces its bright-coloured houses on the slope where cyprus-trees
perched. And the Eastern sky possessed Italian charms.
Bruce brought back from an excursion to Tiberias a fantastic Arab. He
was no one less than the celebrated Burckhardt, Sheik Ibraham as he had
himself called. Tall, strong, shaped like a Hercules, with a broad
German face, prominent eyes, badly placed teeth and an air of assurance,
he displeased Lady Hester. He quitted Syria definitely for Egypt, after
having travelled for two years over the unexplored regions of Lebanon,
Anti-Lebanon and Hauran. None of Lady Hester's companions knew at that
time that he was travelling on account of the Geographical Society.
In July, Lady Hester returned to St. Jean d'Acre to organise the
departure. The caravan passed the gates of the town at sunset. The noise
and the confusion were frightful. The majority of the Christian servants
had never ridden on horseback; and the horses, accustomed by their Arab
masters to rear, dance, neigh and play a thousand tricks on leaving the
villages, added to the confusion. Shouts from the drivers, yells of
fright from the servants.... Mrs. Fry, the English lady's-maid, worried
and ill at ease in her masculine habiliments, persisted in wishing to
ride as an Amazon, at a time when all women in the East rode astride.
The camels became entangled in their leading-reins and threw the line
into disorder when it was scarcely reestablished.
With time and blows, all was settled. The doctor and the janissary Hadji
Ali took the head of the march. In the darkness, beasts and men wandered
from the torrent-bed which served as a track. Suddenly, noises and
tumults in the rear; the camel carrying the medicine-case had just
fallen into a ravine. He was got out again unhurt; but the doctor did
not dare to open the box. Poor medicine-case, collected with great
difficulty in Egypt to replace that lost off Rhodes, it had truly no
chance!
The route seemed sometimes an alley in an English park, well sanded,
bordered by green Aleppo pine-trees, alternating automatically with
thickets of cactus, crested with roses and yellows, sometimes a path of
rocks fit to break the bones. Ruins ended by being engulfed on the
seashore. The road climbed interminably. From a rocky point they saw in
the far distance Tyre like a little fishing barque stranded on the
beach.
The slowness of the journey was full of charms. Sometimes they passed
naked women who were washing their linen at the fountain and who,
without being troubled the least in the world at the sight of them,
carelessly turned their backs. They had just traversed the Nalsr and
Kasimaze when five blind men emerged suddenly, holding each other by the
shoulders and walking one after the other. These joyous fellows
astonished them by their pleasant appearance and their merry air.
And in the evening they encamped on the margin of springs, sometimes in
one of those sanctuaries dedicated to some unknown Mohammedan saint
which the commercial sense of the Arabs has transformed into a café.
Such was that of Kludder. The history of the occupier is too significant
not to be related. This worthy son of Allah had a wife, old and of
canonical appearance, who carried on the business admirably. He
preferred to her a young and pretty girl, who, however, understood
nothing about business. He therefore recalled the first and kept them
both, joining thus the useful to the agreeable. For five years they
shared the task of enriching him and amusing him.
Sidon was sleeping in its orchards of orange-trees when the travellers
stopped at the entrance to the town. Between its two castles in ruins,
of which one is expiring to the rhythm of the waves, it seemed a
princess of "The Thousand and One Nights" guarded by two black giants.
But the arches of the prison were infinite, and lamps of gold watched
over her slumber.
Lady Hester and her people were lodged at the French caravanserai,
prepared by the diligent attentions of the French consul, M. Taitbout.
Scarcely were they installed there than an invitation arrived from the
Prince of the Druses, the Emir Bechir, accompanied by twelve camels,
twenty-five mules, four horses and seven foot soldiers. The two sons of
a merchant of Sidon, the brothers Bertrand, half-dragomans,
half-doctors, were joined to the expedition. They had the quality of
being interchangeable, and travellers never knew exactly with which they
had to deal.
Rather unpleasant rumours were in circulation at Sidon in regard to the
emir. He was born of Moslem parents, but practised in secret the
Christian religion. He was a tyrant, said some, a hypocrite, said
others. Worthy emulator of Djezzar, had he not just caused the eyes of
his nephews, the sons of the Emir Yusef, to be torn out, because they
ventured to compromise his power? He had had a magnificent palace built
in the heart of the Lebanon. And, whispered the best informed people,
there was in the great hall of Beit-ed-Din, a ceiling of such beauty
that the delighted emir had, by way of recompense, caused the two hands
of the artist to be cut off, in order that he might never be able to
begin another. A protector of the arts rather out of the common!
By a narrow path which embraced the circuit of the Nahr-el-Damour,
Bechir's escort guided Lady Hester towards Deir-el-Kammar (the convent
of the moon), which they reached at nightfall. In the morning they had
an elating spectacle: dominating the bounding waters of the torrent,
clinging to the flanks of the mountain, the palace stretched towards the
sun, raising its flowering roofs, its white terraces, its towers, its
arcades, its gardens, which fell back as though in despair at not having
been able to kiss the sky and descended exhausted to the foot of the
slope.
The doctor noted down briefly on his tablets:
"The palace is devoid of all beauty. It is new, but irregular; it has
not two parts alike, and it has been built in pieces and bits, in
accordance with fancy or necessity, in accordance with leisure or money.
The emir has made a present to Lady Hester of a fine horse, richly
caparisoned."
But the English find it difficult to admire what is not their fief.
Scarcely twenty years later, Lamartine was to find other expressions to
proclaim aloud his admiration. The lack of symmetry! But it is that
which ought to possess charm for lovers of the beautiful! And what a
wonderful view was this medley of square towers pierced by ogives, of
long galleries with files of arcades slender and light as the stems of
pine-trees, of graceful colonnades of unequal shape rearing themselves
to the roofs. And the animation of the courts blooming with roses: pages
throwing the djerid, arrival of camels, horses pawing the ground,
comings and goings of Druses, Marionites, Metaoulis!... The doctor saw
nothing; but it must be said in his defence that the palace had hardly
been completed, and that in the East the stones, like the women, grow
old quickly. The masonry crumbles to dust; the rain pierces the roofs;
and the sun, like a skilful magician, gives to the crumbling façades
the golden rust and the rose tint of very old ruins.
But what is unpardonable in the doctor for not having admired, is the
site. Beit-ed-Din is the "Palace of the Waters," with the vaporous mists
which mount from the torrent, with the fountains of its mysterious
gardens, with the eternal murmur of the humid earth which chants its
joy, and the countless cascades and the dropping of the spray which
bathes in the dew, and the silvery foam of the numberless streams and
frolicsome springs. And down there, at the extremity of the valley, the
sea, which presents itself like a pearl at the bottom of a cup.
In the environs of Deir-el-Kammar, Lady Hester went to see another chief
of the Druses whose authority and influence were very considerable, the
Sheik Bechir. He occupied the Palace of Moukhtara, and the doctor, who
had more taste for feminine beauty than the poetry of nature, remarked
that his wife was beautiful and his children charming.
These villages of the Lebanon, peopled by Druses, were silent and sad.
The children even appeared grave. The men, robust mountaineers, with
ruddy complexions, wore the black and white abaye and the immaculate
turban with narrow and symmetrical folds. The women, strongly built and
rather common-looking, save for their eyes, which were perfectly
beautiful, displayed a picturesque costume: blue dress open at the neck
and on the bosom, which it left entirely uncovered; embroidered
trousers, and, above all, on the head, a strange edifice simulating a
horn. A high cone of silver, of copper or of pasteboard, according to
the conditions, bent backwards and veiled by a muslin handkerchief which
fell back over the shoulders, and which the wind caused to float
gracefully. They concealed it with a jealous care, replying to the
travellers who proposed to buy it from them that they would prefer to
part with their heads. Love carried so far that they did remove it even
to sleep and combed themselves until Doomsday. From their hair hung
three silken cords decorated with green, blue or red tassels.
Lady Hester, wishing to see, with her own eyes, if the Druses eat raw
meat, as she had been told many times, bought a sheep and collected some
villagers. The guests, feeling themselves the object of the assembly,
added no doubt many supplementary grimaces and gluttonous attitudes,
which left the doctor under a bad impression. It did not prevent the
sheep from disappearing in the twinkling of an eye, including the tail,
which was large and greasy.
The doctor had lost his servant, who, inconsolable for having left the
onions of Egypt, had gone back to his own country. One morning, when he
was lamenting his loss on his doorstep, he saw appear a long raw-boned
individual, thin and dried up, dressed in sombre garments and exhibiting
a turban of doubtful black. This new-comer, in a French seasoned with a
Gascon accent, offered himself with eloquence as valet, cook, guide and
interpreter. Bewildered, the doctor succumbed beneath the torrent of
words, the vigorous gestures, the expressive mimicry, while examining
the pointed and angular outline, the bony and deeply-lined face, the
cavernous and bright eyes. Curiosity aiding necessity (the caravan was
on the eve of starting for Damascus), he engaged this extraordinary
person. The information which he gathered in the village was favourable
enough. Pierre is mad, they told him, and everyone knows that in the
East madness is of no importance.
This worthy fellow came of a good family of Marseilles: marquises and
marchioness or something of that kind, but which had for a very long
time been established in Syria. One of his uncles, having business with
the Government, brought him when quite a child to France. One day, while
he was walking at Versailles, chance brought him across the path of
Louis XVI. The King and _Monsieur_, struck by his Oriental costume, and
perhaps also by his agitated manner, spoke to him of the countries of
the Levant. All the vanity and the boastfulness of the South, which a
long succession of ancestors had dimly implanted in him, mounted to his
head, and he derived enormous advantage from this interview. He brought
back to Syria a stock of magnificent histories, of which he was
naturally the hero, and notions of French and of cookery in which the
provincial, after all, predominated. When Bonaparte came to lay siege to
St. Jean d'Acre, he rendered some services as interpreter and
accompanied the French into Egypt, where he remained until their
departure. He obtained a pension, which the Government forgot to pay
him. It was then that God bestowed upon him the gift of prophecies.
Melancholy gift, which no one desires. He returned to Deir-el-Kammar
believing firmly in the resurrection of his unhappy country. Not
understood by his friends, scoffed at by his neighbours, despised by his
relatives, he lived pitifully until the news of the arrival of an
English princess ran through the Lebanon like a train of gunpowder. Then
he realised that his destiny was there; he took his wallet and his
staff, and deserted his wife (who was no doubt ugly), to follow the
unknown. In the evening, by the camp fires, he achieved extraordinary
success with the account of his adventures. He used to begin invariably:
"When General Bonaparte formed a corps of Mamelukes, I enrolled in it
with a great number of Syrians, my friends. As soon as we had been
trained in the handling of arms, we were sent into Upper Egypt to join
General Desaix's division. One day, after vainly pursuing the enemy who
fled from us, we arrived very tired on the border of the desert and
encamped. I was on the main guard of the camp, and, towards the middle
of the night, when all the fires were extinguished, I heard a hyena howl
in a strange manner, and at some distance from there the young camels
raised distressing moans. The sky was entirely covered. Suddenly, I
distinguished a sound, which seemed to be advancing towards me. It was
at first only a murmur. I listened, and I heard distinctly the words:
"'Pierre, Pierre, the Arabs will have a King and a Queen!'
"This prodigy filled me with fright; and while I sought to recover my
senses, the same words struck my ear and carried trouble into my soul.
The dreams of the night recounted to me magnificent triumphs and royal
fêtes..
"On the morrow I related to my companions what I had heard; but no one
was inclined to attach any faith to my words.
"Since that day I have spoken of these things to many men; I have
endeavoured to move their hearts to seek by what way the hope might be
able to enter them. But the men have only jeered at me; they received my
prophecy with insults.
"I returned then to my own country. I married; but nothing was able to
snatch from my heart the hope which God had placed there; only I had
hidden it in myself as a precious treasure which I feared to see
misunderstood. Then I heard it related that a great princess of Europe
had arrived in Syria, and I recognised the Queen whom the prophecy had
announced to me."
And Pierre embroidered with fertility and imagination on this unique
theme.
Lady Hester heard people talking of the doctor's strange recruit. Amused
by the extravagant tales of the former soldier of Bonaparte, secretly
flattered at seeing ascribed to her a part of the first importance, a
situation of which she was very fond, disturbed also by the remembrance
of the predictions of Brothers, she caused the "cook-prophet" to enter
her service. But had she not already foreseen that she would be able to
make use of him, or another? The sovereigns of the West had buffoons at
their Courts who made the mob laugh; the pachas of the East had prophets
who made it fear. And there is there a symbol which did not want for
realism. Lady Hester, who was looking for a corner of the earth where
she could play the petty potentate, procured a precious auxiliary to
impose her wishes on the people, willingly credulous when the Korbach is
behind. And Pierre was placed in reserve for a favourable opportunity.
He accompanied the traveller for seven years.