The doctor, to console Lady Hester, spoke words of comfort to her. "In the eyes of lovers of Art," said he, "all the treasures of the world are not worth your statue. Later on, visitors to Ascalon will stand in astonishment before the remains of antiquity snatched from the past by a woman." But Lady Hester, whose unexpected actions were continually disconcerting those who believed that they knew her best, answered coldly: "That is perhaps true, but it is my intention to break this statue into a thousand pieces and to throw it into the sea, just to avoid such a report being spread, and that I may not lose at the Porte the merit of my disinterestedness." And this was done, despite all the murmurs and all the protestations. The ruins, starting from that moment, seemed to avenge themselves for this act of savage vandalism, and the workmen found nothing more; they laughed in their sleeves. The check was complete. The site indicated had been excavated and re-excavated. Lady Hester consoled herself by the thought that Djezzar Pacha had anticipated her, under the pretext of seeking materials for his mosque. She accepted the defeat, but she did not admit as victor anyone except the Red Pacha, the only adversary worthy of her. What was harder, was that England refused to know anything. The expenses remained charged to Lady Hester. It is true that she wrote at that time letters like this: "Since I well knew that it [the statue] would be admired by English travellers, I gave orders for it to be broken to bits, in order that malicious tongues might not proceed to relate that I am searching for statues for my countrymen, and not for treasures for the Sultan." It would discourage, at any rate, people better disposed! Lady Hester, grumbling the while, got out of the difficulty of the Ascalon expenses by the aid of economy. At that moment, she boasted of not having a debt. CHAPTER X IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE ASSASSINS TIRED in body and irritated in mind, Lady Hester revived at Mar-Elias. At that moment, Pierre Ruffin, French chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, an intimate friend of the amiable Pouqueville, had his eye on the Englishwoman and warned Caulaincourt, whom he supposed to be still Minister for Foreign Affairs, that definitely settled in Syria, "whose climate sympathised better with her frail health, the illustrious traveller had received from Great Britain presents to distribute to the local authorities of the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, under the ostensible motive of her personal gratitude for the courtesies which they had lavished upon her." Was he in ignorance, then, that England had refused to share in the Ascalon expenses?