Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/85

 very eyes—the deep, grey, watchful eyes of Napoleon; before night came, the coalition was a vain thing—meet for History, and the heart of its great author was crushed with grief, when the terrible tidings came to his ears. In the bitterness of his despair, he cried out to his niece, and bid her ";" there was a little more of suffering, and at last, with his swollen tongue still muttering something for England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.

Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to have scorned the poor island that had not enough of God's grace to keep the "heaven-sent" minister alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, but there is a longing for the East, very commonly felt by proud-hearted people, when goaded by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed this impulse: for some time, I believe, she was at Constantinople, where her magnificence, and near alliance to the late minister, gained her great influence. Afterwards she passed into Syria. The people of that country, excited by the achievements of Sir Sydney Smith, had begun to imagine the possibility of their land being occupied by the English, and many of them looked upon Lady Hester as a Princess who came to prepare the way for the expected conquest. I don't know it from her own lips, or indeed from any certain authority, but I have been told that she began her connection with the Bedouins by making a large present of money (£500, it was said, immense in piastres) to the Sheik whose authority was recognized in that part of the Desert, which lies between Damascus and Palmyra. The prestige created by the rumors of her high and undefined rank, as well as of her wealth, and corresponding magnificence, was well sustained by her imperious character, and her dauntless bravery. Her influence increased. I never heard anything satisfactory as to the real extent or duration of her sway, but it seemed that, for a time at least, she certainly exercised something like sovereignty amongst the wandering tribes. And now that her earthly kingdom had passed away, she strove for spiritual power, and impiously dared, as it was said, to boast some mystic union with the very God of very God!

A couple of black slave girls came at a signal, and supplied