Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/79

 tidings that the intrepid girl who had been used to break their vicious horses for them, was reigning in sovereignty over the wandering tribes of Western Asia ! I know that her name was made almost as familiar to me in my childhood as the name of Robinson Crusoe ; both were associated with the spirit of adven- ture, but whilst the imagined life of the cast-away mariner never failed to seem glaringly real, the true story of the English- woman ruling over Arabs always sounded to me like fable. I never had heard, nor indeed, I believe, had the rest of the world ever heard anything like a certain account of the Heroine's adventures ; all I knew was, that in one of the drawers which were the delight of my childhood, along with atta of roses, and fragrant wonders from Hindostan, there were letters carefully treasured, and trifling presents which I was taught to think val- uable because they had come from the Queen of the Desert, who dwelt in tents, and reigned over wandering Arabs.

The subject, however, died away, and from the ending of my childhood up to the period of my arrival in the Levant, I had seldom even heard a mentioning of the Lady Hester Stanhope, but now wherever I went, I was met with the name so familiar in sound, and yet so full of mystery from the vague, fairy-tale sort of idea which it brought to my mind ; I heard it, too, con- nected with fresh wonders, for it was said that the woman was now acknowledged as an inspired being by the people of the Mountains, and it was even hinted with horror that she claimed to be more than a prophet.

I felt at once that my mother would be sadly sorry to hear that I had been within a day's ride of her early friend without offering to see her, and I therefore despatched a letter to the Recluse, mentioning the maiden name of my mother (whose marriage was subsequent to Lady Hester's departure), and say- ing that if there existed on the part of her Ladyship any wish to hear of her old Somersetshire acquaintance, I should make a point of visiting her. My letter was sent by a foot messenger who was to take an unlimited time for his journey, so that it was not, I think, until either the third or the fourth day that the answer arrived. A couple of horsemen covered with mud sud- denly dashed into the little court of the "Locanda," in which I