{17} And now that her earthly kingdom had
passed away she strove for spiritual power, and impiously dared, as
it was said, to boast some mystic union with the very God of very
God!
A couple of black slave girls came at a signal, and supplied their
mistress as well as myself with lighted tchibouques and coffee.
The custom of the East sanctions, and almost commands, some moments
of silence whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths of the
fragrant pipe. The pause was broken, I think, by my lady, who
addressed to me some inquiries respecting my mother, and
particularly as to her marriage; but before I had communicated any
great amount of family facts, the spirit of the prophetess kindled
within her, and presently (though with all the skill of a woman of
the world) she shuffled away the subject of poor, dear
Somersetshire, and bounded onward into loftier spheres of thought.
My old acquaintance with some of "the twelve" enabled me to bear my
part (of course a very humble one) in a conversation relative to
occult science. Milnes once spread a report, that every gang of
gipsies was found upon inquiry to have come last from a place to
the westward, and to be about to make the next move in an eastern
direction; either therefore they where to be all gathered together
towards the rising of the sun by the mysterious finger of
Providence, or else they were to revolve round the globe for ever
and ever: both of these suppositions were highly gratifying,
because they were both marvellous; and though the story on which
they were founded plainly sprang from the inventive brain of a
poet, no one had ever been so odiously statistical as to attempt a
contradiction of it. I now mentioned the story as a report to Lady
Hester Stanhope, and asked her if it were true. I could not have
touched upon any imaginable subject more deeply interesting to my
hearer, more closely akin to her habitual train of thinking. She
immediately threw off all the restraint belonging to an interview
with a stranger; and when she had received a few more similar
proofs of my aptness for the marvellous, she went so far as to say
that she would adopt me as her eleve in occult science.
For hours and hours this wondrous white woman poured forth her
speech, for the most part concerning sacred and profane mysteries;
but every now and then she would stay her lofty flight and swoop
down upon the world again. Whenever this happened I was interested
in her conversation.
She adverted more than once to the period of her lost sway amongst
the Arabs, and mentioned some of the circumstances that aided her
in obtaining influence with the wandering tribes.
