THE CIRCE OF THE DESERTS BY PAULE HENRY-BORDEAUX WITH A FRONTISPIECE LONDON HURST & BLACKETT, LTD. PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. [Illustration: Lady Hester Stanhope.] CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Farewell to England II. Mediterranean Yachting III. Oriental Initiation IV. Excursion in the Holy Land V. In the Country of Djezzar Pacha and the Emir Bechir VI. Far niente at Damascus VII. Lady Hester and Lascaris VIII. The Queen of Palmyra IX. From the Temple of Baalbeck to the Ruins of Ascalon X. In the Mountains of the Assassins THE CIRCE OF THE DESERTS CHAPTER I FAREWELL TO ENGLAND ON February 10, 1810, the frigate _Jason_, commander James King,--left Portsmouth, bound for Gibraltar. In the stern of the vessel, a group of four persons watched the coast, which was enveloped in a clinging mist which the meagre English sun could not contrive to absorb, gradually recede into the distance. Three men stood a little apart from a woman whose gigantic stature must not have passed unnoticed, even on British soil. She was six feet in height and was developed in proportion. Strangers who met her for the first time allowed their astonished and mocking eyes to wander at random and to lose their way over the vast surface which she offered to the admirers of bulk, but when they had succeeded in reaching the face, pale and passionate flower borne by a robust stalk, they were interested, captivated, subjugated, dazzled! What wonderful surprise, after the difficult and monotonous ascent of a lofty peak, to discover boundless fields of fresh snow, sparkling with light!... More strange than beautiful, this woman attracted attention, and those who had gazed upon her features never forgot them. Can one say that the sun is beautiful when its fires blind? Thus everything about her glittered; her skin dazzling as marble, of which it possessed the pure grain and the cold smoothness, her eyes of a pale and frosty grey which were illuminated by a terrifying and wild glitter when passion roused her and which was heightened by a bluish ring.... Everything about her was striking: her lips, of a dark red, firm and strong in shape, her dazzling teeth, her curved nose, her obstinate chin. A northern light seemed to play on this lofty and superb forehead, on this countenance of a perfect oval, and isolated her in crowning her as a queen ... or as a madwoman.... What age could she be? Some thirty years hardly. Perhaps more, for the corners of the mouth, a trifle fallen in, had a wrinkle of bitterness and disenchantment which accused her of being older.