But this evocation was not permitted Lady Hester. Palmyra lived again. Palmyra was taking a new and different flight with all these Bedouins clinging to its ruined flanks as to the wrinkled visage of an old coquette whom paint and powder rejuvenate too much for recollection, not enough for credibility. Across these steppes of gilded stones, from which stood out some beautiful columns intact and virginal, one could divine still the line of a triumphal portico. The great central arcade raised towards the sky its pillars fifty feet high, while the lateral arcades, more modest, framed it intermittently. Infinite rows of columns of a rose and yellow colour; stone flesh caressed and polished by the burning and amorous suns of thousands of days! Against each column leant a console bearing the statue of a celebrated personage, perhaps one of those bold caravan leaders who, from the rivers Tigris or Ganges, had brought to Palmyra the brocades of Mosul and the silks of Baghdad, the glass-ware of Irak, the ivory sculptured in silver, the porcelains of China, the sandal-wood and the pearls. But the sands which swallow up everything, the living as the dead, had mingled the débris of the statues with the bones of the heroes. There remained only Greek or Palmyrian inscriptions half-eaten away by time. What was, then, this prodigy? On the iron props which formerly sustained the consoles, young girls were mounted. They kept their fifteen or sixteen year old bodies so perfectly rigid that from afar they looked like white statues. Their loose robes were twisted round their bodies in antique draperies; they wore veils and garlands of flowers. On each side of the pillars, other young girls were grouped. And from one column to the other ran a string of beautiful brown children elevating thyrsi. While Lady Hester was passing these living statues remained motionless, but afterwards, springing from their pedestals, they joined the procession, dancing. The triumphal promenade continued for twelve hundred metres, to terminate in the final apotheosis. Suspended by a miracle to the top of the last arch, a young Bedouin girl deposited a crown on the head of Lady Hester. Then the popular enthusiasm knew no longer any bounds. The poets--all the Arabs are poets--chanted verses in her praise, and the crowd took up the chorus, to the great displeasure of the forty camels, which protested loudly. The entire village was dancing in the steps of the stranger who had braved the seas and the deserts to come to it. Lady Hester was at last satisfied. She was not astonished, for nothing could surpass her dreams of vengeance and her desire for glory. Why did they not see her entry into Palmyra, those detested English who had so disdainfully discarded her? Moore in his golden medallion took part in the fête.