On March 28, 1814, a Frenchman arrived at Sidon and lodged with his consul, M. Taitbout. He was Colonel Boutin, a great friend of Moreau and a very distinguished officer of engineers, who had received the delicate mission of preparing and sounding the ground in the East. Lady Hester had met him at Cairo, and during a dinner party she had turned into ridicule the mysterious air which he affected and had laughingly denounced him as a spy of Bonaparte. One remembers the frightful epidemic of plague in the spring of 1814. In vain Colonel Boutin's friends endeavoured to keep him at Sidon, but he was in a hurry and he left on April 6, leaving as a deposit in trust at Mar-Elias some of his manuscripts. Lady Hester had given him one of her servants, a sure guide and well acquainted with the regions the traveller was to pass through; but unhappily he was carried off by the plague. Colonel Boutin quitted Hama for Latakia. He had informed M. Guys, consul at that town, that he would abandon the ordinary route, which ran northwards so far as Djesrech Chogh, to cut across the Ansaries Mountains. He started--and no one had ever heard of him since. M. Guys awaited him at first patiently; then he became alarmed. The report of his disappearance reached Lady Hester. She thought that the pachas were going to institute a rigorous inquiry, but the pachas feared too much the famous Assassins to raise a little finger in favour of a foreigner so foolish as to throw himself voluntarily into the wolf's mouth. The months passed. Then Lady Hester made up her mind abruptly. In the East, all travellers are brothers; differences of race and national enmities are abolished. She took in hand the case of Colonel Boutin, whom personally she held, besides, in high esteem. The affair was going all at once to rebound and drag from their tranquillity the unpunished murderers. In haste, she drew up her plans. An inquiry, in the rotten heart of the Ansaries country, was difficult, impossible. A silence of a year had thickened the mystery. No matter, it would be necessary for her to bring the affair to a head, and she will bring it to a head. All the blood of the Pitts was boiling in this woman, who had truly received from Heaven the gift of command. She chose three men who possessed her confidence: Signor Volpi was sent to Hama. Soliman, a bold and resolute Druse muleteer, and Pierre, recalled from Deiv el Kammar, where he was keeping an inn, started to repeat Colonel Boutin's journey, disguised as old pedlars. They succeeded in their mission, and in October, 1815, when the doctor disembarked from Egypt, he learned that the proofs which had been collected were conclusive, and that the pacha was to be summoned to act. The doctor made the mistake of not being enthusiastic and of talking of revenge, of danger in the future when Lady Hester went riding. Let him not speak in that manner; she will do without him!