Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/128

 two peasant lads sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to Lady Hester’s room, she asked me if I had observed them.—"Isn’t it wonderful, doctor," said Lady Hester, "that I should have had exactly the same dream two nights following, and the second time so strongly impressed on my mind, that I was sure some of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and, describing to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he should come to a wild spot which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed, not in a cavern, but in a tree, just where I had directed him to go.

"They are two runaway conscripts, and, although I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God directed me to bring them here. Poor lads! did you observe whether they looked pale? they must be in want of nourishment; for the search that is going on everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi himself had no very pleasant duty to perform; for, if they had mistaken him for a man in search of them, one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some risk of his life. You know, one deserter the other day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take him, and another killed two out of five, and, although taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged