The plague was causing great havoc, redoubling its efforts, and established itself in the centre of the town. The Arabs, besides, referred the matter to Mohammed, and took no further precautions or remedies. Barker lost his two little girls. And, on the eve of starting for Sidon, Lady Hester, who had definitely renounced the idea of returning to Europe, was brought down; she also, by the disease. In the evening, the doctor was attacked by fever. Although hardly able to stand, he remained, none the less, at the pillow of the sick woman, for whom he disputed three weeks with death. The servants were struck down, and Latakia was shaken by a violent storm. The water entered in streams through the cracked roof, and they were obliged to move Lady Hester's bed incessantly to prevent it from being flooded. On December 15, she had a relapse; finally, on January 6, 1814, they succeeded in hoisting her into the boat which was to take her to Sidon. In the environs of that town, the Greek patriarch Athanasius had let to her, for a mere nothing, the Monastery of Mar-Elias. This monastery, built on a bare spur of the Lebanon, commanded a view of the Syrian Sea. Small and dilapidated, it had the privilege of preserving in its walls the body of the last patriarch seated in his chair. Unpleasant detail: he had been badly embalmed and recalled himself to the sense of smell of his faithful friends in an ill-timed manner. It is at this moment that Lady Hester changed in character. Her convalescence being prolonged, she became simple in her habits up to cynicism. She displayed in her conversation a bitter and singularly acute spirit, judging men as though she were reading from an open book in their hearts. She found some consolations in a Sphynx-like attitude, and being well acquainted with the undercurrents and the mechanism of European politics, she was able to afford herself the luxury of predictions realisable and rather often realised.