The spring advanced, the amusements multiplied: opening of a mummy and extraction of a tooth in a perfect state of preservation by a French surgeon--foolish diversion!--Egyptian dancing-girls, excursions to the Pyramids of Gizeh under the escort of the Mamelukes. At length, on May 11, 1812, the faithful friends of Lady Hester: Bruce and Pearce, who took a liking to the adventure, the doctor--who regretted already the amber-coloured Egyptian women, moulded in their chemises of blue cotton, Venuses tanned by the sting of a too ardent sun--embarked at Damietta for Palestine, for Jerusalem. Two French Mamelukes, as bodyguards, with their syces, the English lady's-maid, a groom, three men-servants, a porter, followed. And all this company was not too much to transport the six great green tents decorated with flowers, the numerous chests of palm-wood, light and tough, which contained all the outfit of the caravan to replace what had disappeared in the shipwreck off Rhodes. CHAPTER IV EXCURSION IN THE HOLY LAND WHAT did Lady Hester intend to do in Syria and in Palestine? She did not intend to seek oblivion, for the necessity of getting herself talked about, and the thirst for a celebrity which she strove vainly to retain, formed part of her nature, and she never got rid of it. She resembled closely her grandfather, Lord Chatham. She had not only his grey eyes, which anger darkened strangely, and of which no one was able, at that time, to stand the glance, but also the inexorable will, the terrible passions, the continuous tension of the mind in the direction of one single object without troubling about the obstacles to be overthrown or the means employed to conquer them.