Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/170

 wind howled without, with now and then occasional echoes of the thunder among the mountains: and it required no great stretch of imagination to believe one's self listening to the inspired oracles of the Delphic priestess, as she poured forth the warnings of what seemed a preternatural insight into futurity.

December 9.—The morning was employed in writing letters, and in the evening I remained until half-past one with Lady Hester. She spoke of the alarm created in Mahomet Ali's cabinet, by her affording pretection to Abdallah Pasha's people after the surrender of St. Jean d'Acre. "That impudent fellow C********," said she, "sent me a packet of letters from Colonel Campbell, and told me I was to prepare a list of all the people in my house, giving their names, nation, a description of their persons, &c. I returned him the packet, and desired him to forward it to the quarter whence it came, adding, 'These are all the commands that Lady Hester Stanhope has at present to give to Mr. C********.' To Colonel C. I wrote 'that it was not customary for consuls to give orders to their superiors; that, as for the English name, about which he talked so much, I made over to him all the advantage he might derive from it.' And my letter to Boghoz was to the effect that, 'in confessing, as he did, that I rendered the state of this country unsettled by my measures, he acknowledged