I, Therefore, Stated Fairly, To The Horror And Amazement
Of All My Hearers, That The Sheik, In My View, Was Likely To Make A
Most Capital Husband, And That I Entirely "Approved Of The Match."
I left Nablus under the impression that Mariam would soon be
delivered to her Mussulman lover.
I afterwards found, however,
that the result was very different. Dthemetri's religious zeal and
hate had been so much excited by the account of these events, and
by the grief and mortification of his co-religionists, that when he
found me firmly determined to decline all interference in the
matter, he secretly appealed to the Governor in my name, and
(using, I suppose, many violent threats, and telling no doubt many
lies about my station and influence) extorted a promise that the
proselyte should be restored to her relatives. I did not
understand that the girl had been actually given up whilst I
remained at Nablus, but Dthemetri certainly did not desist from his
instances until he had satisfied himself by some means or other
(for mere words amounted to nothing) that the promise would be
actually performed. It was not till I had quitted Syria, and when
Dthemetri was no longer in my service, that this villainous, though
well-motived trick, of his came to my knowledge. Mysseri, who had
informed me of the step which had been taken, did not know it
himself until some time after we had quitted Nablus, when Dthemetri
exultingly confessed his successful enterprise.
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