Then, it was the silence of the warm nights, the passing of the breeze which refreshed the gardens, the plaintive cry of some jackals quite close at hand. Nevertheless, not a hair fell from her head. The Englishwoman had conquered. The Assassins, astonished at meeting in a woman a contempt for death equal to their own, decided that to respect this life to which she seemed to attach no value would be for them a superior vengeance. They proved themselves, in this case, very profound philosophers. What a magnificent fate, in fact, would have been that of Lady Hester, "the Arab Amazon," according to Barbey d'Aurevilly, "who rode at the gallop out of European civilisation and English routine--that old circus where you turn in a ring--to reanimate her sensations in the peril and independence of the desert," if she had ended in blood in the mountains of the Assassins! She would have disappeared like a brilliant meteor, in the midst of her glory, in the midst of her fortune, leaving behind a trail of heroic legends. She would have escaped the slow agony of Djoun, where, overwhelmed by old age, oblivion and ill-health, she straightened her tall figure to make head against the pack of creditors and Jewish usurers, more filthy in Syria than anywhere else. At the end of September, Lady Hester returned to Mar-Elias, unharmed. The Princess of Wales had concluded her lamentable journey in the Holy Land, dragging with her that Italian courier Bergami, whom she had bombarded in quick succession with the titles of Baron della Francina, Knight of Malta and Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and whom she had just appointed at Jerusalem Grand Master of St. Caroline, an order which she had created expressly for him, without taking into consideration the impropriety of her action. Miss Williams and the doctor awaited Lady Hester anxiously. For Miss Williams had disembarked in Syria in March, 1816. Her attachment to her patroness was so great that she could not make up her mind to remain at a distance from her, and, after passing some years at Malta, she had left her sister and had, despite every difficulty--tempest, sea-sickness, mutiny of the crew and a passage of three and a half months--come to rejoin her. Lady Hester's lady's-maid, Ann Fry, awaited Miss Williams when she left the vessel, in order to veil her and to inculcate her with the first instructions relative to the new life. Such was Lady Hester's response to her devotion! Amongst the visitors to Mar-Elias during that last year, the least commonplace was without question that young Mr. W. J. Bankes, who arrived full of stupid confidence in himself and with a conquering air. Lady Hester received him very amicably, and, learning that it was his intention to go to Palmyra, she gave him letters of recommendation to Muly Ishmael of Hama and to Nasr, son of the Emir of the Anezes. She also offered him old Pierre, who was always brought to the front when it was a question of choosing an experienced guide.