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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vathek, by William Beckford, et al
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vathek
+       An Arabian Tale
+
+
+Author: William Beckford
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2013  [eBook #42401]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VATHEK***
+
+
+This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 VATHEK;
+
+
+                             AN ARABIAN TALE,
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+
+                          WILLIAM BECKFORD, ESQ.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                   WITH
+
+                     NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 LONDON:
+                       GEORGE SLATER, 252, STRAND.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  1849.
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR.
+BY WILLIAM NORTH.
+
+
+WILLIAM BECKFORD, the author of the following celebrated Eastern tale,
+was born in 1760, and died in the spring of 1844, at the advanced age of
+eighty-four years.  It is to be regretted, that a man of so remarkable a
+character, did not leave the world some record of a life offering points
+of interest different from that of any of his contemporaries, from the
+peculiarly studious retirement and eccentric avocations in which it was
+chiefly passed.  Such a memoir would have formed a curious contrast with
+that of the late M. de Chateaubriand, who, born nearly at the same
+period, outlived but by a few years, the strange Englishman, whose famous
+romance forms a brilliant ornament to French literature, which even Atala
+is unlikely to outlive in the memory of Chateaubriand’s countrymen.  All
+men of genius should write autobiographies.  Such works are inestimable
+lessons to posterity.  As it is, there are few men, of whom it is more
+difficult to compose an elaborate and detailed history than the author of
+“Vathek.”  From such scanty sources as are open to us, the reader must be
+content with a few striking facts and illustrations, which may serve to
+convey some idea of the idiosyncrasy of a man, whose whole life was a
+sort of mystery, even to his personal acquaintances.
+
+His great-great-grandfather was lieutenant-governor and commander of the
+forces in Jamaica; and his grandfather president of the council in the
+same island.  His father, though not a merchant, as has been represented,
+but a large landed proprietor, both in England and the West Indies, was
+lord mayor of London, and distinguished himself in presenting an address
+to the king, George the Third,—by a spirited retort to his majesty,—who
+had the ill-breeding to treat discourteously a deputation which the lord
+mayor headed.  The portraits of Alderman Beckford, and his more
+celebrated son, were painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.  The former died in
+1770, leaving the subject of this memoir the wealthiest commoner in
+England.
+
+No pains were spared on the education of the young Croesus—the lords
+Chatham and Camden being consulted by his father on that subject.
+Besides Latin and Greek, he spoke five modern languages, and wrote three
+with facility and elegance.  He read Persian and Arabic, designed with
+great skill, and studied the science of music under the great Mozart.
+
+At the age of eighteen he visited Paris, and was introduced to Voltaire.
+“On taking leave of me,” said Beckford, “he placed his hand on my head,
+saying, ‘There, young Englishman, I give you the blessing of a very old
+man.’  Voltaire was a mere skeleton—a bony anatomy.  His countenance I
+shall never forget.”
+
+His first literary production, “Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters,” was
+written at the early age of seventeen.  It would appear, that the old
+housekeeper at Fonthill, was in the habit of edifying visitors to its
+picture gallery by a description of the paintings, mainly derived from
+her own fertile imagination.  This suggested to our author, the humorous
+idea of composing a catalogue of suppositious painters with histories of
+each, equally fanciful and grotesque.  Henceforward, the old housekeeper
+had a printed guide (or rather, mis-guider) to go by, and could discourse
+at large on the merits of Og of Bashan! Waterslouchy of Amsterdam! and
+Herr Sucrewasser of Vienna! their wives and styles!  As for the country
+squires, etc., “they,” Beckford tells us, “took all for gospel.”
+
+“Vathek,”—the superb “Vathek,” which Lord Byron so much admired, and on
+which he so frequently complimented the author,—“Vathek,” the finest of
+Oriental romances, as “Lallah Rookh” is the first of Oriental poems, by
+the pen of a “Frank,” was written and published before our author had
+completed his twentieth year, it having been composed at a _single
+sitting_!  Yes, for three days and two nights did the indefatigable
+author persevere in his task.  He completed it, and a serious illness was
+the result.  What other literary man ever equalled this feat of rapidity
+and genius?
+
+“Vathek” was originally written in French, of which its style is a model.
+The translation which follows, is not by the author himself, though he
+expressed perfect satisfaction with it.  It was originally published in
+1786.  For splendour of description, exquisite humour, and supernatural
+interest and grandeur, it stands without a rival in romance.  In as
+thoroughly Oriental keeping, Hope’s “Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern
+Greek,” which Beckford himself highly admired, can alone be compared with
+it.
+
+Much of the description of Vathek’s palace, and even the renowned “Hall
+of Eblis,” was afterwards visibly embodied in the real Fonthill Abbey, of
+which wonders, almost as fabulous, were at one time reported and
+believed.
+
+Fonthill Abbey, which had been destroyed by fire, and re-built during the
+life-time of the elder Beckford, was on account of its bad site
+demolished, and again re-built under the superintendence of our author
+himself, assisted by James Wyatt, Esq., the architect, with a
+magnificence that excited the greatest attention and wonder at the time.
+The total outlay of building Fonthill, including furniture, articles of
+virtu, etc., must have been enormous, not much within the million, as
+estimated by the “Times.”  A writer in the “Athenæum” mentions £400,000
+as the sum.  Beckford informed Mr. Cyrus Redding, that the exact cost of
+building Fonthill was £273,000.
+
+The distinguishing architectural peculiarity of Fonthill Abbey, was a
+lofty tower, 280 feet in height.  This tower was prominently shadowed
+forth in “Vathek,” and shows how strong a hold the idea had upon his
+mind.  Such was his impatience to see Fonthill completed, that he had the
+works continued by torchlight, with relays of workmen.  During the
+progress of the building, the tower caught fire, and was partly
+destroyed.  The owner, however, was present, and enjoyed the magnificent
+burning spectacle.  It was soon restored; but a radical fault in laying
+the foundation, caused it eventually to fall down, and leave Fonthill a
+ruin in the life-time of its founder.
+
+Not so much his extravagant mode of life, which is the common notion, as
+the loss of two large estates in a law suit (the value of which may be
+inferred from the fact, that _fifteen hundred slaves_ were upon them)
+induced our author to quit Fonthill, and offer it and its contents for
+public sale.  There was a general desire to see the interior of the
+palace, in which its lord had lived in a luxurious seclusion, so little
+admired by the curious of the fashionable world.  “He is fortunate,” says
+the “Times” of 1822, “who finds a vacant chair within twenty miles of
+Fonthill; the solitude of a private apartment is a luxury which few can
+hope for.” . . .  “Falstaff himself could not _take his ease_ at this
+moment within a dozen leagues of Fonthill.” . . . “The beds through the
+county are (literally) doing double duty—people who come in from a
+distance during the night must wait to go to bed until others get up in
+the morning.” . . . “Not a farm-house, however humble,—not a cottage near
+Fonthill, but gives shelter to fashion, to beauty, and rank; ostrich
+plumes, which, by their very waving, we can trace back to Piccadilly, are
+seen nodding at a casement window over a depopulated poultry-yard.”
+
+The costly treasures of art and virtu, as well as the furniture of the
+rich mansion, were scattered far and wide; and one of its tables served
+the writer of this memoir to scribble upon, when first stern necessity,
+or yet sterner ambition, urged him to add his mite to the Babel tower of
+literature.  At that table I first read “Vathek.”  I have read it often
+since, and every perusal has increased my admiration.
+
+Nearly fifty years after the publication of “Vathek,” in 1835, Mr.
+Beckford published his “Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries
+of Alcobaca and Batalha,” which he had taken in 1795, together with an
+epistolatory record of his observations in Italy, Spain and Portugal,
+between the years 1780 and 1794.  These are marked, as he himself
+intimates, “with the bloom and heyday of youthful spirits and youthful
+confidence, at a period when the older order of things existed with all
+its picturesque pomps and absurdities; when Venice enjoyed her Piombi and
+sub-marine dungeons; Prance her Bastille; the Peninsula her Holy
+Inquisition.”  With none of those subjects, however, are the letters
+occupied—but with delineations of landscape, and the effects of natural
+phenomena.  These literary efforts appear to have exhausted their
+author’s productive powers; in a word, he seems soon to have been
+“used-up,” and then to have discontinued his search after new sensations,
+or to have been content to live without them.
+
+After the sale of Fonthill, our author lived a considerable time in
+Portugal, and hence Lord Byron, who was fond of casting the shadow of his
+own imagination over every object, penned the well-known lines at Cintra:
+
+    “There thou, too, Vathek, England’s wealthiest son,
+       Once formed thy paradise; as not aware
+       Where wanton wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,
+    Meek peace, voluptuous lures, was ever wont to shun.
+
+       Here didst thou dwell; here scenes of pleasure plan,
+       Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow;
+       But now, as if a thing unblest by man,
+       Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!
+       Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow
+       To halls deserted; portals gaping wide
+       Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom; how
+       Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied,
+    Swept into wrecks anon by time’s ungentle tide.”
+
+These sombre verses contrast strangely with Beckford’s saying to Mr.
+Cyrus Redding, in his seventy-sixth year, “that he had never felt a
+moments’ ennui in his life.”
+
+Beckford was in person scarcely above the middle height, slender, and
+well formed, with features indicating great intellectual power.  He was
+exactly one year younger than Pitt, the companion of his minority.  His
+political principles were popular, though it is recorded, that at a court
+ball on the Queen’s birth-day, in 1782, he, with Miss North, led up a
+country dance.  He sat in parliament, in his early years, both for Wells
+and Hendon, but retired on account of bad health.  This, however, he
+overcame by careful diet and exercise, as testified by his great bodily
+activity almost to the last.  He was a man of most extensive reading, and
+cultivated taste.
+
+The last years of his life were passed at Bath—where he united two houses
+in Lansdown Crescent, by an arch thrown across the street, and containing
+his library, which was well selected, and very extensive.  Not far off,
+he again erected a tower, 180 feet high, of which the following
+description was given at the time of his decease, by a correspondent of
+the Athenæum:—
+
+“Mr. Beckford, at an early period of his residence there, erected a lofty
+tower, in the apartments of which were placed many of his choicest
+paintings and articles of virtu.  Asiatic in its style, with gilded
+lattices and blinds, or curtains, of crimson cloth, its striped ceilings,
+its minaret, and other accessories, conveyed the idea that the being who
+designed the place and endeavoured to carry out the plan, was deeply
+imbued with the spirit of that lonely grandeur and strict solitariness
+which obtains through all countries and among all people of the East.
+The building was surrounded by a high wall, and entrance afforded to the
+garden in which the tower stood, by a door of small dimensions.  The
+garden itself was Eastern in its character.  Though comparatively
+circumscribed in its size, nevertheless were to be found within it,
+solitary walks and deep retiring shades, such as could be supposed
+Vathek, the mournful and the magnificent, loved, and from the bowers of
+which might be expected would suddenly fall upon the ear, sounds of the
+cymbal and the dulcimer.  The building contained several apartments
+crowded with the finest paintings.  At the time I made my inspection the
+walls were crowded with the choicest productions of the easel.  The
+memory falls back upon ineffaceable impressions of Old Franks, Breughel,
+Cuyp, Titian, (a Holy Family), Hondekooter, Polemberg, and a host of
+other painters whose works have immortalized Art.  Ornaments of the most
+exquisite gold fillagree, carvings in ivory and wood, Raphaelesque china,
+goblets formed of gems, others fashioned by the miraculous hands of
+Benvenuto Cellini, filled the many cabinets and _recherché_ receptacles
+created for such things.  The doors of the rooms were of finely polished
+wood—the windows of single sweeps of plate glass—the cornices of gilded
+silver; every part, both within and without, bespeaking the wealth, the
+magnificence, and the taste of him who had built this temple in
+dedication to grandeur, solitariness, and the arts.”
+
+From the summit of this tower, Mr. Beckford, and he alone without a
+telescope,—could behold that other tower of his youthful magnificence,
+Fonthill; on which he loved to gaze, with feelings which it would be
+difficult to describe.  His eyesight was wonderful; he could gaze upon
+the sun like an eagle; and on the day that the great tower at Fonthill
+fell he missed it in the landscape long before the news of the
+catastrophe reached Bath.
+
+In conclusion, we have only to add, that our author, in his life-time,
+had all that wealth can give, and in his grave his memory will retain
+that which no wealth can purchase.  Whatever may have been his errors,
+they have died with him.  His genius yet lives, and “Vathek,” now for the
+first time presented to the public in a popular form, will, whilst
+English literature lasts, never want readers, and, while good taste
+flourishes, admirers.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+THE original of the following story, with some others of a similar kind,
+collected in the east by a man of letters, was communicated to the editor
+above three years ago.  The pleasure he received from the perusal of it
+induced him at that time to transcribe, and since to translate it.  How
+far the copy may be a just representation it becomes not him to
+determine.  He presumes however to hope that if the difficulty of
+accommodating our English idioms to the Arabic, preserving the
+correspondent tones of a diversified narration, and discriminating the
+nicer touches of character through the shades of foreign manners be duly
+considered, a failure in some points will not preclude him from all claim
+to indulgence; especially if those images, sentiments, and passions,
+which being independent of local peculiarities, may be expressed in every
+language, shall be found to retain their native energy in our own.
+
+
+
+
+VATHEK.
+
+
+VATHEK, ninth Caliph {7a} of the race of the Abassides, was the son of
+Motassem, and the grandson of Haroun Al Raschid.  From an early accession
+to the throne, and the talents he possessed to adorn it, his subjects
+were induced to expect that his reign would be long and happy.  His
+figure was pleasing and majestic; but when he was angry, one of his eyes
+became so terrible {7b} that no person could bear to behold it; and the
+wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and sometimes
+expired.  For fear, however, of depopulating his dominions, and making
+his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to his anger.
+
+Being much addicted to women, and the pleasures of the table, he sought
+by his affability to procure agreeable companions; and he succeeded the
+better, as his generosity was unbounded and his indulgences unrestrained;
+for he was by no means scrupulous: nor did he think, with the Caliph Omar
+Ben Abdalaziz, {8a} that it was necessary to make a hell of this world to
+enjoy Paradise in the next.
+
+He surpassed in magnificence all his predecessors.  The palace of
+Alkoremmi, which his father Motassem had erected on the hill of Pied
+Horses, and which commanded the whole city of Samarah, {8b} was in his
+idea far too scanty: he added, therefore, five wings, or rather other
+palaces, which he destined for the particular gratification of each of
+his senses.
+
+In the first of these were tables continually covered with the most
+exquisite dainties, which were supplied both by night and by day
+according to their constant consumption; whilst the most delicious wines,
+and the choicest cordials, flowed forth from a hundred fountains, that
+were never exhausted.  This palace was called “The Eternal, or
+Unsatiating Banquet.”
+
+The second was styled “The Temple of Melody, or the Nectar of the Soul.”
+It was inhabited by the most skilful musicians and admired poets of the
+time, who not only displayed their talents within, but dispersing in
+bands without, caused every surrounding scene to reverberate their songs,
+which were continually varied in the most delightful succession.
+
+The palace named “The Delight of the Eyes, or the Support of Memory,” was
+one entire enchantment.  Rarities collected from every corner of the
+earth were there found in such profusion as to dazzle and confound, but
+for the order in which they were arranged.  One gallery exhibited the
+pictures of the celebrated Mani; and statues that seemed to be alive.
+Here a well-managed perspective attracted the sight; there, the magic of
+optics agreeably deceived it; whilst the naturalist, on his part,
+exhibited in their several classes the various gifts that heaven had
+bestowed on our globe.  In a word, Vathek omitted nothing in this
+particular that might gratify the curiosity of those who resorted to it,
+although he was not able to satisfy his own; for he was, of all men, the
+most curious.
+
+“The Palace of Perfumes,” which was termed likewise, “The Incentive to
+Pleasure,” consisted of various halls, where the different perfumes which
+the earth produces were kept perpetually burning in censers of gold.
+Flambeaus and aromatic lamps were here lighted in open day; but the too
+powerful effects of this agreeable delirium might be avoided by
+descending into an immense garden, where an assemblage of every fragrant
+flower diffused through the air the purest odours.
+
+The fifth palace, denominated “The Retreat of Joy, or the Dangerous,” was
+frequented by troops of young females, beautiful as the Houris, {9} and
+not less seducing, who never failed to receive with caresses all whom the
+Caliph allowed to approach them; for he was by no means disposed to be
+jealous, as his own women were secluded within the palace he inhabited
+himself.
+
+Notwithstanding the sensuality in which Vathek indulged, he experienced
+no abatement in the love of his people, who thought that a sovereign
+immersed in pleasure was not less tolerable to his subjects than one that
+employed himself in creating them foes.  But the unquiet and impetuous
+disposition of the Caliph would not allow him to rest there: he had
+studied so much for his amusement in the life-time of his father as to
+acquire a great deal of knowledge, though not a sufficiency to satisfy
+himself; for he wished to know everything; even sciences that did not
+exist.  He was fond of engaging in disputes with the learned, but liked
+them not to push their opposition with warmth.  He stopped the mouths of
+those with presents, whose mouths could be stopped; whilst others, whom
+his liberality was unable to subdue, he sent to prison to cool their
+blood; a remedy that often succeeded.
+
+Vathek discovered also a predilection for theological controversy; but it
+was not with the orthodox that he usually held.  By this means he induced
+the zealots to oppose him, and then persecuted them in return; for he
+resolved, at any rate, to have reason on his side.
+
+The great prophet Mahomet, whose vicars the Caliphs are, beheld with
+indignation from his abode in the seventh heaven the irreligious conduct
+of such a vicegerent.
+
+“Let us leave him to himself,” said he to the Genii, {10} who are always
+ready to receive his commands; “let us see to what lengths his folly and
+impiety will carry him; if he run into excess we shall know how to
+chastise him.  Assist him, therefore, to complete the tower which, in
+imitation of Nimrod, he hath begun; not, like that great warrior, to
+escape being drowned, but from the insolent curiosity of penetrating the
+secrets of heaven: he will not divine the fate that awaits him.”
+
+The Genii obeyed; and when the workmen had raised their structure a cubit
+in the day time, two cubits more were added in the night.  The expedition
+with which the fabric arose was not a little flattering to the vanity of
+Vathek.  He fancied that even insensible matter showed forwardness to
+subserve his designs; not considering that the successes of the foolish
+and wicked form the first rod of their chastisement.
+
+His pride arrived at its height when, having ascended, for the first
+time, the eleven thousand stairs of his tower, he cast his eyes below and
+beheld men not larger than pismires; mountains than shells; and cities
+than bee-hives.  The idea which such an elevation inspired of his own
+grandeur completely bewildered him; he was almost ready to adore himself;
+till lifting his eyes upwards, he saw the stars as high above him as they
+appeared when he stood on the surface of the earth.  He consoled himself,
+however, for this transient perception of his littleness with the thought
+of being great in the eyes of the others, and flattered himself that the
+light of his mind would extend beyond the reach of his sight, and
+transfer to the stars the decrees of his destiny.
+
+With this view the inquisitive prince passed most of his nights on the
+summit of his tower, till he became an adept in the mysteries of
+astrology, and imagined that the planets had disclosed to him the most
+marvellous adventures, which were to be accomplished by an extraordinary
+personage, from a country altogether unknown.  Prompted by motives of
+curiosity, he had always been courteous to strangers; but from this
+instant he redoubled his attention, and ordered it to be announced by
+sound of trumpet, through all the streets of Samarah, that no one of his
+subjects, on peril of his displeasure, should either lodge or detain a
+traveller, but forthwith bring him to the palace.
+
+Not long after this proclamation, there arrived in his metropolis, a man
+so hideous that the very guards who arrested him were forced to shut
+their eyes as they led him along.  The Caliph himself appeared startled
+at so horrible a visage; but joy succeeded to this emotion of terror when
+the stranger displayed to his view such rarities as he had never before
+seen, and of which he had no conception.
+
+In reality, nothing was ever so extraordinary as the merchandise this
+stranger produced.  Most of his curiosities, which were not less
+admirable for their workmanship than their splendour, had besides, their
+several virtues described on a parchment fastened to each.  There were
+slippers which enabled the feet to walk; knives that cut without the
+motion of a hand; sabres which dealt the blow at the person they were
+wished to strike; and the whole enriched with gems that were hitherto
+unknown.
+
+The sabres, whose blades emitted a dazzling radiance, fixed more than all
+the Caliph’s attention, who promised himself to decipher at his leisure
+the uncouth characters engraven on their sides.  Without, therefore,
+demanding their price, he ordered all the coined gold to be brought from
+his treasury, and commanded the merchant to take what he pleased.  The
+stranger complied with modesty and silence.
+
+Vathek, imagining that the merchant’s taciturnity was occasioned by the
+awe which his presence inspired, encouraged him to advance, and asked
+him, with an air of condescension, “Who he was? whence he came? and where
+he obtained such beautiful commodities?”
+
+The man, or rather monster, instead of making a reply, thrice rubbed his
+forehead, which, as well as his body, was blacker than ebony; four times
+clapped his paunch, the projection of which was enormous; opened wide his
+huge eyes, which glowed like firebrands; began to laugh with a hideous
+noise, and discovered his long amber coloured teeth bestreaked with
+green.
+
+The Caliph, though a little startled, renewed his enquiries, but without
+being able to procure a reply.  At which, beginning to be ruffled, he
+exclaimed, “knowest thou, varlet, who I am? and at whom thou art aiming
+thy gibes?”  Then addressing his guards, “have ye heard him speak? is he
+dumb?”
+
+“He hath spoken,” they replied, “though but little.”
+
+“Let him speak then again,” said Vathek, “and tell me who he is, from
+whence he came, and where he procured these singular curiosities, or I
+swear, by the ass of Balaam, that I will make him rue his pertinacity.”
+
+This menace was accompanied by the Caliph with one of his angry and
+perilous glances, which the stranger sustained without the slightest
+emotion, although his eyes were fixed on the terrible eye of the prince.
+
+No words can describe the amazement of the courtiers, when they beheld
+this rude merchant withstand the encounter unshocked.  They all fell
+prostrate with their faces on the ground, to avoid the risk of their
+lives, and continued in the same abject posture till the Caliph exclaimed
+in a furious tone:
+
+“Up, cowards! seize the miscreant! see that he be committed to prison,
+and guarded by the best of my soldiers!  Let him, however, retain the
+money I gave him; it is not my intent to take from him his property, I
+only want him to speak.”
+
+No sooner had he uttered these words than the stranger was surrounded,
+pinioned with strong fetters, and hurried away to the prison of the great
+tower, which was encompassed by seven empalements of iron bars, and armed
+with spikes in every direction, longer and sharper than spits.
+
+The Caliph, nevertheless, remained in the most violent agitation.  He sat
+down indeed to eat, but of the three hundred covers that were daily
+placed before him, could taste of no more than thirty-two.
+
+A diet to which he had been so little accustomed, was sufficient of
+itself to prevent him from sleeping, what then must be its effect when
+joined to the anxiety that prayed upon his spirits?  At the first glimpse
+of dawn he hastened to the prison, again to importune this intractable
+stranger; but the rage of Vathek exceeded all bounds on finding the
+prison empty, the gates burst asunder, and his guards lying lifeless
+around him.  In the paroxysm of his passion he fell furiously on the poor
+carcases, and kicked them till evening without intermission.  His
+courtiers and viziers exerted their efforts to soothe his extravagance,
+but finding every expedient ineffectual, they all united in one
+vociferation:
+
+“The Caliph is gone mad! the Caliph is out of his senses!”
+
+This outcry, which was soon resounded through the streets of Samarah, at
+length reached the ears of Carathis, his mother: she flew in the utmost
+consternation to try her ascendency on the mind of her son.  Her tears
+and caresses called off his attention; and he was prevailed upon by her
+entreaties to be brought back to the palace.
+
+Carathis, apprehensive of leaving Vathek to himself, caused him to be put
+to bed; and seating herself by him, endeavoured by her conversation to
+heal and compose him.  Nor could any one have attempted it with better
+success; for the Caliph not only loved her as a mother but respected her
+as a person of superior genius.  It was she who had induced him, being a
+Greek herself, to adopt all the sciences and systems of her country,
+which good Mussulmans hold in such thorough abhorrence.
+
+Judicial astrology was one of those systems in which Carathis was a
+perfect adept.  She began, therefore, with reminding her son of the
+promise which the stars had made him; and intimated an intention of
+consulting them again.
+
+“Alas!” sighed the Caliph, as soon at he could speak, “what a fool have I
+been! not for the kicks bestowed on my guards, who so tamely submitted to
+death, but for never considering that this extraordinary man was the same
+the planets had foretold; whom, instead of ill-treating, I should have
+conciliated by all the arts of persuasion.”
+
+“The past,” said Carathis, “cannot be recalled; but it behoves us to
+think of the future: perhaps you may again see the object you so much
+regret: it is possible the inscriptions on the sabres will afford
+information.  Eat, therefore, and take thy repose, my dear son.  We will
+consider, to-morrow, in what manner to act.”
+
+Vathek yielded to her counsel as well as he could, and arose in the
+morning with a mind more at ease.  The sabres he commanded to be
+instantly brought; and poring upon them through a green glass, that their
+glittering might not dazzle, he set himself in earnest to decipher the
+inscriptions; but his reiterated attempts were all of them nugatory: in
+vain did he beat his head and bite his nails; not a letter of the whole
+was he able to ascertain.  So unlucky a disappointment would have undone
+him again, had not Carathis, by good fortune, entered the apartment.
+
+“Have patience, son!” said she.  “You certainly are possessed of every
+important science, but the knowledge of languages is a trifle, at best;
+and the accomplishment of none but a pedant.  Issue forth a proclamation
+that you will confer such rewards as become your greatness upon any one
+that shall interpret what you do not understand, and what it is beneath
+you to learn.  You will soon find your curiosity gratified.”
+
+“That may be,” said the Caliph; “but in the mean time I shall be horribly
+disgusted by a crowd of smatterers, who will come to the trial as much
+for the pleasure of retailing their jargon as from the hope of gaining
+the reward.  To avoid this evil, it will be proper to add that I will put
+every candidate to death who shall fail to give satisfaction; for, thank
+heaven, I have skill enough to distinguish between one that translates
+and one that invents.”
+
+“Of that I have no doubt,” replied Carathis, “but to put the ignorant to
+death is somewhat severe, and may be productive of dangerous effects.
+Content yourself with commanding their beards to be burnt: beards, in a
+state, are not quite so essential as men.”
+
+The Caliph submitted to the reasons of his mother, and sending for
+Morakanabad, his prime vizier, said:
+
+“Let the common criers proclaim, not only in Samarah, but throughout
+every city in my empire, that whosoever will repair hither, and decipher
+certain characters which appear to be inexplicable, shall experience the
+liberality for which I am renowned; but that all who fail upon trial
+shall have their beards burnt off to the last hair.  Let them add also,
+that I will bestow fifty beautiful slaves, and as many jars of apricots
+from the isle of Kirmith, upon any man that shall bring me intelligence
+of the stranger.”
+
+The subjects of the Caliph, like their sovereign, being great admirers of
+women, and apricots from Kirmith, felt their mouths water at these
+promises, but were totally unable to gratify their hankering, for no one
+knew which way the stranger had gone.
+
+As to the Caliph’s other requisition the result was different: the
+learned, the half-learned, and those who were neither, but fancied
+themselves equal to both, came boldly to hazard their beards, and all
+shamefully lost them.
+
+The exaction of these forfeitures, which found sufficient employment for
+the Eunuchs, gave them such a smell of singed hair as greatly to disgust
+the ladies of the seraglio, and make it necessary that this new
+occupation of their guardians should be transferred into other hands.
+
+At length, however, an old man presented himself, whose beard was a
+cubit-and-a-half longer than any that had appeared before him.  The
+officers of the palace whispered to each other, as they ushered him in:
+
+“What a pity such a beard should be burnt!”
+
+Even the Caliph, when he saw it, concurred with them in opinion; but his
+concern was entirely needless.  This venerable personage read the
+characters with facility, and explained them verbatim, as follows:
+
+“We were made where everything good is made; we are the least of the
+wonders of a place where all is wonderful; and deserving the sight of the
+first potentate on earth.”
+
+“You translate admirably!” cried Vathek.  “I know to what these
+marvellous characters allude.  Let him receive as many robes of honour,
+and thousands of sequins of gold, as he hath spoken words.  I am in some
+measure relieved from the perplexity that embarrassed me!”
+
+Vathek invited the old man to dine, and even to remain some days in the
+palace.  Unluckily for him, he accepted the offer; for the Caliph having
+ordered him next morning to be called, said:
+
+“Read again to me what you have read already; I cannot hear too often the
+promise that is made me, the completion of which I languish to obtain.”
+
+The old man forthwith put on his green spectacles; but they instantly
+dropped from his nose, on perceiving that the characters he had read the
+day preceding, had given place to others of different import.
+
+“What ails you?” asked the Caliph; “and why these symptoms of wonder?”
+
+“Sovereign of the world,” replied the old man, “these sabres hold another
+language to-day, from that they yesterday held.”
+
+“How say you?” returned Vathek.  “But it matters not! tell me, if you
+can, what they mean.”
+
+“It is this, my lord,” rejoined the old man: “‘Woe to the rash mortal who
+seeks to know that of which he should remain ignorant and to undertake
+that which surpasseth his power!’”
+
+“And woe to thee!” cried the Caliph, in a burst of indignation: “to-day
+thou art void of understanding: begone from my presence, they shall burn
+but the half of thy beard, because thou wert yesterday fortunate in
+guessing.  My gifts I never resume.”
+
+The old man, wise enough to perceive he had luckily escaped, considering
+the folly of disclosing so disgusting a truth, immediately withdrew, and
+appeared not again.
+
+But it was not long before Vathek discovered abundant reason to regret
+his precipitation; for though he could not decipher the characters
+himself, yet, by constantly poring upon them, he plainly perceived that
+they every day changed; and unfortunately no other candidate offered to
+explain them.  This perplexing occupation inflamed his blood, dazzled his
+sight, and brought on a giddiness and debility that he could not support.
+He failed not, however, though in so reduced a condition, to be often
+carried to his tower, as he flattered himself that he might there read in
+the stars, which he went to consult, something more congruous to his
+wishes.  But in this his hopes were deluded; for his eyes, dimmed by the
+vapours of his head, began to subserve his curiosity so ill, that he
+beheld nothing but a thick dun cloud, which he took for the most direful
+of omens.
+
+Agitated with so much anxiety, Vathek entirely lost all firmness; a fever
+seized him and his appetite failed.  Instead of being one of the greatest
+eaters, he became as distinguished for drinking.  So insatiable was the
+thirst which tormented him, that his mouth, like a funnel, was always
+open to receive the various liquors that might be poured into it and
+especially cold water, which calmed him more than every other.
+
+This unhappy prince being thus incapacitated for the enjoyment of any
+pleasure, commanded the palaces of the five senses to be shut up;
+forebore to appear in public, either to display his magnificence or
+administer justice; and retired to the inmost apartment of his harem.  As
+he had ever been an indulgent husband, his wives, overwhelmed with grief
+at his deplorable situation, incessantly offered their prayers for his
+health, and unremittingly supplied him with water.
+
+In the mean time, the Princess Carathis, whose affliction no words can
+describe, instead of restraining herself to sobbing and tears, was
+closeted daily with the Vizier Morakanabad, to find out some cure or
+mitigation of the Caliph’s disease.  Under the persuasion that it was
+caused by enchantment, they turned over together leaf by leaf, all the
+books of magic that might point out a remedy; and caused the horrible
+stranger, whom they accused as the enchanter, to be everywhere sought for
+with the strictest diligence.
+
+At the distance of a few miles from Samarah stood a high mountain, whose
+sides were swarded with wild thyme and basil, and its summit overspread
+with so delightful a plain that it might be taken for the Paradise
+destined for the faithful.  Upon it grew a hundred thickets of eglantine
+and other fragrant shrubs; a hundred arbours of roses, jessamine, and
+honeysuckle; as many clumps of orange trees, cedar, and citron; whose
+branches, interwoven with the palm, the pomegranate, and the vine,
+presented every luxury that could regale the eye or the taste.  The
+ground was strewed with violets, harebells, and pansies; in the midst of
+which sprung forth tufts of jonquils, hyacinths, and carnations, with
+every other perfume that impregnates the air.  Four fountains, not less
+clear than deep, and so abundant as to slake the thirst of ten armies,
+seemed purposely placed here to make the scene more resemble the garden
+of Eden, which was watered by the four sacred rivers.  Here the
+nightingale sang the birth of the rose, her well-beloved, and at the same
+time lamented its short-lived beauty; whilst the turtle deplored the loss
+of more substantial pleasures and the wakeful lark hailed the rising
+light that reanimates the whole creation.  Here, more than anywhere, the
+mingled melodies of birds expressed the various passions they inspired;
+as if the exquisite fruits, which they pecked at pleasure, had given them
+a double energy.
+
+To this mountain Vathek was sometimes brought, for the sake of breathing
+a purer air; and especially, to drink at will of the four fountains,
+which were reputed in the highest degree salubrious, and sacred to
+himself.  His attendants were his mother, his wives, and some eunuchs,
+who assiduously employed themselves in filling capacious bowls of rock
+crystal, and emulously presenting them to him.  But it frequently
+happened that his avidity exceeded their zeal; insomuch that he would
+prostrate himself upon the ground to lap up the water, of which he could
+never have enough.
+
+One day when this unhappy prince had been long lying in so debasing a
+posture, a voice, hoarse but strong, thus addressed him:
+
+“Why assumest thou the function of a dog, oh Caliph, so proud of thy
+dignity and power?”
+
+At this apostrophe he raised up his head and beheld the stranger that had
+caused him so much affliction.  Inflamed with anger at the sight, he
+exclaimed:
+
+“Accursed Giaour! {23} what comest thou hither to do? is it not enough to
+have transformed a prince, remarkable for his agility, into one of those
+leather barrels which the Bedouin Arabs carry on their camels when they
+traverse the deserts?  Perceivest thou not that I may perish by drinking
+to excess, no less than by a total abstinence?”
+
+“Drink then this draught,” said the stranger, as he presented to him a
+phial of a red and yellow mixture; “and to satiate the thirst of thy soul
+as well as of thy body, know that I am an Indian, but from a region of
+India which is wholly unknown.”
+
+The Caliph, delighted to see his desires accomplished in part, and
+flattering himself with the hope of obtaining their entire fulfilment,
+without a moment’s hesitation swallowed the potion, and instantaneously
+found his health restored, his thirst appeased, and his limbs as agile as
+ever.
+
+In the transports of his joy, Vathek leaped upon the neck of the
+frightful Indian, and kissed his horrid mouth and hollow cheeks, as
+though they had been the coral lips, and the lilies and roses of his most
+beautiful wives; whilst they, less terrified than jealous at the sight,
+dropped their veils to hide the blush of mortification that suffused
+their foreheads.
+
+Nor would the scene have closed here, had not Carathis, with all the art
+of insinuation, a little repressed the raptures of her son.  Having
+prevailed upon him to return to Samarah, she caused a herald to precede
+him, whom she commanded to proclaim as loudly as possible:
+
+“The wonderful stranger hath appeared again; he hath healed the Caliph;
+he hath spoken! he hath spoken!”
+
+Forthwith all the inhabitants of this vast city quitted their
+habitations, and ran together in crowds to see the procession of Vathek
+and the Indian, whom they now blessed as much as they had before
+execrated, incessantly shouting,
+
+“He hath healed our sovereign; he hath spoken! he hath spoken!”
+
+Nor were these words forgotten in the public festivals, which were
+celebrated the same evening to testify the general joy, for the poets
+applied them as a chorus to all the songs they composed.
+
+The Caliph, in the mean while caused the palaces of the senses to be
+again set open, and as he found himself prompted to visit that of taste,
+in preference to the rest, immediately ordered a splendid entertainment,
+to which his great officers and favourite courtiers were all invited.
+The Indian, who was placed near the prince, seemed to think that as a
+proper acknowledgment of so distinguished a privilege, he could neither
+eat, drink, nor talk too much.  The various dainties were no sooner
+served up than they vanished, to the great mortification of Vathek, who
+piqued himself on being the greatest eater alive, and at this time in
+particular had an excellent appetite.
+
+The rest of the company looked round at each other in amazement, but the
+Indian without appearing to observe it, quaffed large bumpers to the
+health of each of them: sung in a style altogether extravagant; related
+stories at which he laughed immoderately; and poured forth extemporaneous
+verses which would not have been thought bad, but for the strange
+grimaces with which they were uttered.  In a word, his loquacity was
+equal to that of a hundred astrologers; he ate as much as a hundred
+porters, and caroused in proportion.
+
+The Caliph, notwithstanding the table had been thirty times covered,
+found himself incommoded by the voraciousness of his guest, who was now
+considerably declined in the prince’s esteem.  Vathek, however, being
+unwilling to betray the chagrin he could hardly disguise, said in a
+whisper to Bababalouk, {26a} the chief of his eunuchs:
+
+“You see how enormous his performances in every way are; what would be
+the consequence should he get at my wives?  Go! redouble your vigilance,
+and be sure look well to my Circassians, who would be more to his taste
+than all of the rest.”
+
+The bird of the morning had thrice renewed his song, when the hour of the
+divan {26b} sounded.  Vathek, in gratitude to his subjects, having
+promised to attend, immediately arose from table and repaired thither
+leaning upon his vizier, who could scarcely support him, so disordered
+was the poor prince by the wine he had drank, and still more by the
+extravagant vagaries of his boisterous guest.
+
+The viziers, the officers of the crown, and of the law, arranged
+themselves in a semi-circle about their sovereign, and preserved a
+respectful silence, whilst the Indian, who looked as cool as if come from
+a fast, sat down without ceremony on a step of the throne, laughing in
+his sleeve at the indignation with which his temerity had filled the
+spectators.
+
+The Caliph, however, whose ideas were confused and his head embarrassed,
+went on administering justice at hap-hazard, till at length the prime
+vizier {27} perceiving his situation, hit upon a sudden expedient to
+interrupt the audience, and rescue the honour of his master, to whom he
+said in a whisper:
+
+“My lord, the princess Carathis, who hath passed the night in consulting
+the planets, informs you that they portend you evil; and the danger is
+urgent.  Beware, lest this stranger whom you have so lavishly recompensed
+for his magical gewgaws, should make some attempt on your life: his
+liquor, which at first had the appearance of effecting your cure, may be
+no more than a poison of a sudden operation.  Slight not this surmise;
+ask him, at least, of what it was compounded; whence he procured it; and
+mention the sabres, which you seem to have forgotten.”
+
+Vathek, to whom the insolent airs of the stranger became every moment
+less supportable, intimated to his vizier by a wink of acquiescence, that
+he would adopt his advice, and at once turning towards the Indian, said:
+
+“Get up and declare in full divan of what drugs the liquor was compounded
+you enjoined me to take, for it is suspected to be poison; add also the
+explanation I have so earnestly desired concerning the sabres you sold
+me, and thus show your gratitude for the favours heaped on you.”
+
+Having pronounced these words in as moderate a tone as a Caliph well
+could, he waited in silent expectation for an answer; but the Indian,
+still keeping his seat, began to renew his loud shouts of laughter, and
+exhibit the same horrid grimaces he had shown them before, without
+vouchsafing a word in reply.  Vathek, no longer able to brook such
+insolence, immediately kicked him from the steps, instantly descending
+repeated his blow, and persisted with such assiduity, as incited all who
+were present to follow his example.  Every foot was aimed at the Indian,
+and no sooner had any one given him a kick than he felt himself
+constrained to reiterate the stroke.
+
+The stranger afforded them no small entertainment; for being both short
+and plump, he collected himself into a ball and rolled round on all sides
+at the blows of his assailants, who pressed after him wherever he turned,
+with an eagerness beyond conception, whilst their numbers were every
+moment increasing.  The ball, indeed, in passing from one apartment to
+another, drew every person after it that came in its way, insomuch that
+the whole palace was thrown into confusion, and resounded with a
+tremendous clamour.  The women of the harem, amazed at the uproar, flew
+to their blinds to discover the cause, but no sooner did they catch a
+glimpse of the ball than feeling themselves unable to refrain, they broke
+from the clutches of their eunuchs, who to stop their flight pinched them
+till they bled, but in vain; whilst themselves, though trembling with
+terror at the escape of their charge, were as incapable of resisting the
+attraction.
+
+The Indian, after having traversed the halls, galleries, chambers,
+kitchens, gardens, and stables of the palace, at last took his course
+through the courts, whilst the Caliph, pursuing him closer than the rest,
+bestowed as many kicks as he possibly could, yet not without receiving
+now and then one, which his competitors, in their eagerness, designed for
+the ball.
+
+Carathis, Morakanabad, and two or three old viziers whose wisdom had
+hitherto withstood the attraction, wishing to prevent Vathek from
+exposing himself in the presence of his subjects, fell down in his way to
+impede the pursuit, but he, regardless of their obstruction, leaped over
+their heads, and went on as before.  They then ordered the muezzins to
+call the people to prayers, both for the sake of getting them out of the
+way, and of endeavouring by their petitions to avert the calamity; but
+neither of these expedients was a whit more successful.  The sight of
+this fatal ball was alone sufficient to draw after it every beholder.
+The muezzins themselves, though they saw it but at a distance, hastened
+down from their minarets and mixed with the crowd, which continued to
+increase in so surprising a manner, that scarce an inhabitant was left in
+Samarah, except the aged, the sick confined to their beds, and infants at
+the breast, whose nurses could run more nimbly without them.  Even
+Carathis, Morakanabad, and the rest, were all become of the party.
+
+The shrill screams of the females who had broken from their apartments,
+and were unable to extricate themselves from the pressure of the crowd,
+together with those of the eunuchs jostling after them, terrified lest
+their charge should escape from their sight, increased by the execrations
+of husbands urging forward and menacing both, kicks given and received,
+stumblings and overthrows at every step, in a word, the confusion that
+universally prevailed, rendered Samarah like a city taken by storm, and
+devoted to absolute plunder.
+
+At last the cursed Indian, who still preserved his rotundity of figure,
+after passing through all the streets and public places, and leaving them
+empty, rolled onwards to the plain of Catoul, and traversed the valley at
+the foot of the mountain of the four fountains.
+
+As a continual fall of water had excavated an immense gulph in the
+valley, whose opposite side was closed in by a steep acclivity, the
+Caliph and his attendants were apprehensive lest the ball should bound
+into the chasm, and to prevent it, redoubled their efforts, but in vain.
+The Indian persevered in his onward direction, and as had been
+apprehended, glancing from the precipice with the rapidity of lightning,
+was lost in the gulph below.
+
+Vathek would have followed the perfidious Giaour, had not an invisible
+agency arrested his progress.  The multitude that pressed after him were
+at once checked in the same manner, and a calm instantaneously ensued.
+They all gazed at each other with an air of astonishment; and
+notwithstanding that the loss of veils and turbans, together with torn
+habits, and dust blended with sweat, presented a most laughable
+spectacle, there was not one smile to be seen; on the contrary, all with
+looks of confusion and sadness returned in silence to Samarah, and
+retired to their inmost apartments, without ever reflecting that they had
+been impelled by an invisible power into the extravagance for which they
+reproached themselves: for it is but just, that men who so often arrogate
+to their own merit the good of which they are but instruments, should
+attribute to themselves the absurdities which they could not prevent.
+
+The Caliph was the only person that refused to leave the valley.  He
+commanded his tents to be pitched there, and stationed himself on the
+very edge of the precipice, in spite of the representations of Carathis
+and Morakanabad, who pointed out the hazard of its brink giving way, and
+the vicinity to the magician that had so severely tormented him.  Vathek
+derided all their remonstrances; and having ordered a thousand flambeaus
+to be lighted, and directed his attendants to proceed in lighting more,
+lay down on the slippery margin, and attempted, by the help of this
+artificial splendour, to look through that gloom which all the fires of
+the empyrean had been insufficient to pervade.  One while he fancied to
+himself voices arising from the depth of the gulph, at another he seemed
+to distinguish the accents of the Indian, but all was no more than the
+hollow murmur of waters, and the din of the cataracts that rushed from
+steep to steep, down the sides of the mountain.
+
+Having passed the night in this cruel perturbation, the Caliph at
+day-break retired to his tent, where, without taking the least
+sustenance, he continued to doze till the dusk of evening began to come
+on; he then resumed his vigils as before, and persevered in observing
+them for many nights together.  At length, fatigued with so successless
+an employment, he sought relief from change.  To this end he sometimes
+paced with hasty strides across the plain; and as he wildly gazed at the
+stars, reproached them with having deceived him; but lo! on a sudden the
+clear blue sky appeared streaked over with streams of blood, which
+reached from the valley even to the city of Samarah.  As this awful
+phenomenon seemed to touch his tower, Vathek at first thought of
+repairing thither to view it more distinctly, but feeling himself unable
+to advance, and being overcome with apprehension, he muffled up his face
+in his robe.
+
+Terrifying as these prodigies were, this impression upon him was no more
+than momentary, and served only to stimulate his love of the marvellous.
+Instead, therefore, of returning to his palace, he persisted in the
+resolution of abiding where the Indian vanished from his view.  One
+night, however, while he was walking as usual on the plain, the moon and
+the stars at once were eclipsed, and a total darkness ensued.  The earth
+trembled beneath him, and a voice came forth, the voice of the Giaour,
+who in accents more sonorous than thunder, thus addressed him:
+
+“Would’st thou devote thyself to me? adore then the terrestrial
+influences, and abjure Mahomet.  On these conditions I will bring thee to
+the palace of subterranean fire: there shalt thou behold, in immense
+depositories, the treasures which the stars have promised thee, and which
+will be conferred by those intelligences whom thou shalt thus render
+propitious.  It was from thence I brought my sabres; and it is there that
+Soliman Ben Daoud reposes, surrounded by the talismans that control the
+world.”
+
+The astonished Caliph trembled as he answered, yet in a style that showed
+him to be no novice in preternatural adventures:
+
+“Where art thou?  Be present to my eyes; dissipate the gloom that
+perplexes me, and of which I deem thee the cause.  After the many
+flambeaus I have burnt to discover thee, thou mayest at least grant a
+glimpse of thy horrible visage.”
+
+“Abjure then Mahomet,” replied the Indian, “and promise me full proofs of
+thy sincerity; otherwise thou shalt never behold me again.”
+
+The unhappy Caliph, instigated by insatiable curiosity, lavished his
+promises in the utmost profusion.  The sky immediately brightened; and by
+the light of the planets, which seemed almost to blaze, Vathek beheld the
+earth open, and at the extremity of a vast black chasm a portal of ebony,
+before which stood the Indian, still blacker, holding in his hand a
+golden key, that caused the lock to resound.
+
+“How,” cried Vathek, “can I descend to thee, without the certainty of
+breaking my neck?  Come take me, and instantly open the portal.”
+
+“Not so fast,” replied the Indian, “impatient Caliph!  Know that I am
+parched with thirst, and cannot open this door till my thirst be
+thoroughly appeased.  I require the blood of fifty of the most beautiful
+sons of thy viziers and great men, or neither can my thirst nor thy
+curiosity be satisfied.  Return to Samarah; procure for me this necessary
+libation; come back hither; throw it thyself into this chasm; and then
+shalt thou see!”
+
+Having thus spoken, the Indian turned his back on the Caliph, who,
+incited by the suggestion of demons, resolved on the direful sacrifice.
+He now pretended to have regained his tranquillity, and set out for
+Samarah amidst the acclamations of a people who still loved him, and
+forbore not to rejoice when they believed him to have recovered his
+reason.  So successfully did he conceal the emotion of his heart, that
+even Carathis and Morakanabad were equally deceived with the rest.
+Nothing was heard of but festivals and rejoicings.  The ball, which no
+tongue had hitherto ventured to mention, was again brought on the tapis.
+A general laugh went round; though many, still smarting under the hands
+of the surgeon, from the hurts received in that memorable adventure, had
+no great reason for mirth.
+
+The prevalence of this gay humour was not a little grateful to Vathek, as
+perceiving how much it conduced to his project.  He put on the appearance
+of affability to every one; but especially to his viziers, and the
+grandees of his court, whom he failed not to regale with a sumptuous
+banquet, during which he insensibly inclined the conversation to the
+children of his guests.  Having asked, with a good-natured air, who of
+them were blessed with the handsomest boys, every father at once asserted
+the pretensions of his own; and the contest imperceptibly grew so warm,
+that nothing could have with-holden them from coming to blows but their
+profound reverence for the person of the Caliph.  Under the pretence,
+therefore, of reconciling the disputants, Vathek took upon him to decide;
+and with this view commanded the boys to be brought.
+
+It was not long before a troop of these poor children made their
+appearance, all equipped by their fond mothers with such ornaments as
+might give the greatest relief to their beauty, or most advantageously
+display the graces of their age.  But whilst this brilliant assemblage
+attracted the eyes and hearts of every one besides, the Caliph
+scrutinized each in his turn with a malignant avidity that passed for
+attention, and selected from their number the fifty whom he judged the
+Giaour would prefer.
+
+With an equal show of kindness as before, he proposed to celebrate a
+festival on the plain, for the entertainment of his young favourites, who
+he said ought to rejoice still more than all at the restoration of his
+health, on account of the favours he intended for them.
+
+The Caliph’s proposal was received with the greatest delight, and soon
+published through Samarah.  Litters, camels, and horses were prepared.
+Women and children, old men and young—every one placed himself in the
+station he chose.  The cavalcade set forward, attended by all the
+confectioners in the city and its precincts.  The populace, following on
+foot, composed an amazing crowd, and occasioned no little noise.  All was
+joy; nor did any one call to mind what most of them had suffered when
+they first travelled the road they were now passing so gaily.
+
+The evening was serene, the air refreshing, the sky clear, and the
+flowers exhaled their fragrance.  The beams of the declining sun, whose
+mild splendour reposed on the summit of the mountain, shed a glow of
+ruddy light over its green declivity, and the white flocks sporting upon
+it.  No sounds were audible, save the murmurs of the four fountains, and
+the reeds and voices of shepherds, calling to each other from different
+eminences.
+
+The lovely innocents, proceeding to the destined sacrifice, added not a
+little to the hilarity of the scene.  They approached the plain full of
+sportiveness; some coursing butterflies, others culling flowers, or
+picking up the shining little pebbles that attracted their notice.  At
+intervals, they nimbly started from each other, for the sake of being
+caught again, and mutually imparting a thousand caresses.
+
+The dreadful chasm, at whose bottom the portal of ebony was placed, began
+to appear at a distance.  It looked like a black streak that divided the
+plain.  Morakanabad and his companions took it for some work which the
+Caliph had ordered.  Unhappy men! little did they surmise for what it was
+destined.
+
+Vathek, not liking that they should examine it too nearly, stopped the
+procession, and ordered a spacious circle to be formed on this side, at
+some distance from the accursed chasm.  The body-guard of eunuchs was
+detached, to measure out the lists intended for the games, and prepare
+ringles for the lines to keep off the crowd.  The fifty competitors were
+soon stripped, and presented to the admiration of the spectators the
+suppleness and grace of their delicate limbs.  Their eyes sparkled with a
+joy which those of their fond parents reflected.  Every one offered
+wishes for the little candidate nearest his heart, and doubted not of his
+being victorious.  A breathless suspense awaited the contest of these
+amiable and innocent victims.
+
+The Caliph, availing himself of the first moment to retire from the
+crowd, advanced towards the chasm, and there heard, yet not without
+shuddering, the voice of the Indian; who, gnashing his teeth, eagerly
+demanded:
+
+“Where are they?  Where are they? perceivest thou not how my mouth
+waters?”
+
+“Relentless Giaour!” answered Vathek, with emotion, “can nothing content
+thee but the massacre of these lovely victims?  Ah! wert thou to behold
+their beauty, it must certainly move thy compassion.”
+
+“Perdition on thy compassion, babbler!” cried the Indian.  “Give them me!
+instantly give them, or my portal shall be closed against thee for ever!”
+
+“Not so loudly,” replied the Caliph, blushing.
+
+“I understand thee,” returned the Giaour, with the grin of an ogre: “thou
+wantest to summon up more presence of mind.  I will for a moment
+forbear.”
+
+During this exquisite dialogue the games went forward with all alacrity,
+and at length concluded, just as the twilight began to overcast the
+mountains.  Vathek, who was still standing on the edge of the chasm,
+called out with all his might:
+
+“Let my fifty little favourites approach me, separately; and let them
+come in the order of their success.  To the first I will give my diamond
+bracelet; to the second my collar of emeralds; to the third my aigret of
+rubies; to the fourth my girdle of topazes; and to the rest, each a part
+of my dress, even down to my slippers.”
+
+This declaration was received with reiterated acclamations; and all
+extolled the liberality of a prince who would thus strip himself for the
+amusement of his subjects and the encouragement of the rising generation.
+
+The Caliph in the mean while undressed himself by degrees; and raising
+his arm as high as he was able, made each of the prizes glitter in the
+air; but, whilst he delivered it with one hand to the child, who sprang
+forward to receive it, he with the other pushed the poor innocent into
+the gulph, where the Giaour, with a sullen muttering, incessantly
+repeated “More! more!”
+
+This dreadful device was executed with so much dexterity, that the boy
+who was approaching him remained unconscious of the fate of his
+forerunner; and as to the spectators, the shades of evening, together
+with their distance, precluded them from perceiving any object
+distinctly.  Vathek, having in this manner thrown in the last of the
+fifty, and expecting that the Giaour on receiving him would have
+presented the key, already fancied himself as great as Soliman, and
+consequently above being amenable for what he had done; when, to his
+utter amazement, the chasm closed, and the ground became as entire as the
+rest of the plain.
+
+No language could express his rage and despair.  He execrated the perfidy
+of the Indian; loaded him with the most infamous invectives; and stamped
+with his foot as resolving to be heard.  He persisted in this demeanour
+till his strength failed him, and then fell on the earth like one void of
+sense.  His viziers and grandees, who were nearer than the rest, supposed
+him at first to be sitting on the grass at play with their amiable
+children; but at length, prompted by doubt, they advanced towards the
+spot, and found the Caliph alone, who wildly demanded what they wanted.
+
+“Our children! our children!” cried they.
+
+“It is assuredly pleasant,” said he, “to make me accountable for
+accidents.  Your children, while at play, fell from the precipice that
+was here; and I should have experienced their fate had I not been saved
+by a sudden start back.”
+
+At these words, the fathers of the fifty boys cried out aloud: the
+mothers repeated their exclamations an octave higher; whilst the rest,
+without knowing the cause, soon drowned the voices of both, with still
+louder lamentations of their own.
+
+“Our Caliph,” said they, and the report soon circulated, “Our Caliph has
+played us this trick, to gratify his accursed Giaour.  Let us punish him
+for his perfidy! let us avenge ourselves! let us avenge the blood of the
+innocent! let us throw this cruel Prince into the gulph that is near, and
+let his name be mentioned no more!”
+
+At this rumour, and these menaces, Carathis, full of consternation,
+hastened to Morakanabad, and said:
+
+“Vizier, you have lost two beautiful boys, and must necessarily be the
+most afflicted of fathers; but you are virtuous; save your master!”
+
+“I will brave every hazard,” replied the Vizier, “to rescue him from his
+present danger; but afterwards will abandon him to his fate.
+Bababalouk,” continued he, “put yourself at the head of your Eunuchs,
+disperse the mob, and if possible bring back this unhappy Prince to his
+palace.”
+
+Bababalouk and his fraternity, felicitating each other in a low voice on
+their disability of ever being fathers, obeyed the mandate of the Vizier;
+who, seconding their exertions to the utmost of his power, at length
+accomplished his generous enterprise, and retired, as he resolved, to
+lament at his leisure.
+
+No sooner had the Caliph re-entered his palace, than Carathis commanded
+the doors to be fastened; but perceiving the tumult to be still violent,
+and hearing the imprecations which resounded from all quarters, she said
+to her son:
+
+“Whether the populace be right or wrong, it behoves you to provide for
+your safety: let us retire to your own apartment, and from thence,
+through the subterranean passage known only to ourselves, into your
+tower; there, with the assistance of the mutes who never leave it, we may
+be able to make some resistance.  Bababalouk, supposing us to be still in
+the palace, will guard its avenues for his own sake; and we shall soon
+find, without the counsels of that blubberer Morakanabad, what expedient
+may be the best to adopt.”
+
+Vathek, without making the least reply, acquiesced in his mother’s
+proposal, and repeated as he went:
+
+“Nefarious Giaour! where art thou? hast thou not yet devoured those poor
+children? where are thy sabres? thy golden key? thy talismans?”
+
+Carathis, who guessed from these interrogations a part of the truth, had
+no difficulty to apprehend in getting at the whole, as soon as he should
+be a little composed in his tower.  This Princess was so far from being
+influenced by scruples that she was as wicked as woman could be, which is
+not saying a little, for the sex pique themselves on their superiority in
+every competition.  The recital of the Caliph therefore occasioned
+neither terror nor surprise to his mother; she felt no emotion but from
+the promises of the Giaour; and said to her son:
+
+“This Giaour, it must be confessed, is somewhat sanguinary in his taste,
+but the terrestrial powers are always terrible: nevertheless, what the
+one has promised and the others can confer, will prove a sufficient
+indemnification.  No crimes should be thought too dear for such a reward.
+Forbear then to revile the Indian: you have not fulfilled the conditions
+to which his services are annexed.  For instance, is not a sacrifice to
+the subterranean Genii required? and should we not be prepared to offer
+it as soon as the tumult is subsided?  This charge I will take on myself,
+and have no doubt of succeeding by means of your treasures; which, as
+there are now so many others in store, may without fear be exhausted.”
+
+Accordingly, the Princess, who possessed the most consummate skill in the
+art of persuasion, went immediately back through the subterranean
+passage, and presenting herself to the populace from a window of the
+palace, began to harangue them with all the address of which she was
+mistress, whilst Bababalouk showered money from both hands amongst the
+crowd, who by these united means were soon appeased.  Every person
+retired to his home, and Carathis returned to the tower.
+
+Prayer at break of day was announced, when Carathis and Vathek ascended
+the steps which led to the summit of the tower, where they remained for
+some time, though the weather was lowering and wet.  This impending gloom
+corresponded with their malignant dispositions; but when the sun began to
+break through the clouds, they ordered a pavilion to be raised as a
+screen from the intrusion of his beams.  The Caliph, overcome with
+fatigue, sought refreshment from repose, at the same time hoping that
+significant dreams might attend on his slumbers; whilst the indefatigable
+Carathis, followed by a party of her mutes, descended to prepare whatever
+she judged proper for the oblation of the approaching night.
+
+By secret stairs, known only to herself and her son, she first repaired
+to the mysterious recesses in which were deposited the mummies that had
+been brought from the catacombs of the ancient Pharaohs.  Of these she
+ordered several to be taken.  From thence she resorted to a gallery,
+where, under the guard of fifty female negroes, mute, and blind of the
+right eye, were preserved the oil of the most venomous serpents,
+rhinoceros’ horns, and woods of a subtle and penetrating odour, procured
+from the interior of the Indies, together with a thousand other horrible
+rarieties.  This collection had been formed for a purpose like the
+present, by Carathis herself, from a presentiment that she might one day
+enjoy some intercourse with the infernal powers, to whom she had ever
+been passionately attached, and to whose taste she was no stranger.
+
+To familiarize herself the better with the horrors in view, the Princess
+remained in the company of her negresses, who squinted in the most
+amiable manner from the only eye they had, and leered with exquisite
+delight at the skulls and skeletons which Carathis had drawn forth from
+her cabinets, whose key she entrusted to no one; all of them making
+contortions, and uttering a frightful jargon, but very amusing to the
+Princess till at last, being stunned by their gibbering, and suffocated
+by the potency of their exhalations, she was forced to quit the gallery,
+after stripping it of a part of its treasures.
+
+Whilst she was thus occupied, the Caliph, who instead of the visions he
+expected, had acquired in these insubstantial regions a voracious
+appetite, was greatly provoked at the negresses: for, having totally
+forgotten their deafness, he had impatiently asked them for food; and
+seeing them regardless of his demand, he began to cuff, pinch, and push
+them, till Carathis arrived to terminate a scene so indecent, to the
+great content of these miserable creatures, who having been brought up by
+her, understood all her signs, and communicated in the same way their
+thoughts in return.
+
+“Son! what means all this?” said she, panting for breath.  “I thought I
+heard as I came up, the shrieks of a thousand bats, tearing from their
+crannies in the recesses of a cavern, and it was the outcry only of these
+poor mutes, whom you were so unmercifully abusing.  In truth you but ill
+deserve the admirable provision I have brought you.”
+
+“Give it me instantly!” exclaimed the Caliph: “I am perishing for
+hunger!”
+
+“As to that,” answered she, “you must have an excellent stomach if it can
+digest what I have been preparing.”
+
+“Be quick,” replied the Caliph.  “But oh, heavens! what horrors!  What do
+you intend?”
+
+“Come, come,” returned Carathis, “be not so squeamish, but help me to
+arrange every thing properly, and you shall see that what you reject with
+such symptoms of disgust will soon complete your felicity.  Let us get
+ready the pile for the sacrifice of to-night, and think not of eating
+till that is performed.  Know you not that all solemn rites are preceded
+by a rigorous abstinence?”
+
+The Caliph, not daring to object, abandoned himself to grief, and the
+wind that ravaged his entrails, whilst his mother went forward with the
+requisite operations.  Phials of serpents’ oil, mummies, and bones, were
+soon set in order on the balustrade of the tower.  The pile began to
+rise; and in three hours was as many cubits high.  At length, darkness
+approached, and Carathis having stripped herself to her inmost garment,
+clapped her hands in an impulse of ecstasy, and struck light with all her
+force.  The mutes followed her example: but Vathek, extenuated with
+hunger and impatience, was unable to support himself, and fell down in a
+swoon.  The sparks had already kindled the dry wood; the venomous oil
+burst into a thousand blue flames; the mummies, dissolving, emitted a
+thick dun vapour; and the rhinoceros’ horns beginning to consume; all
+together diffused such a stench, that the Caliph, recovering, started
+from his trance and gazed wildly on the scene in full blaze around him.
+The oil gushed forth in a plentitude of streams; and the negresses, who
+supplied it without intermission, united their cries to those of the
+Princess.  At last the fire became so violent, and the flames reflected
+from the polished marble so dazzling, that the Caliph, unable to
+withstand the heat and the blaze, effected his escape, and clambered up
+the imperial standard.
+
+In the mean time, the inhabitants of Samarah, scared at the light which
+shone over the city, arose in haste, ascended their roofs, beheld the
+tower on fire, and hurried half-naked to the square.  Their love to their
+sovereign immediately awoke; and apprehending him in danger of perishing
+in his tower, their whole thoughts were occupied with the means of his
+safety.  Morakanabad flew from his retirement, wiped away his tears, and
+cried out for water like the rest.  Bababalouk, whose olfactory nerves
+were more familiarized to magical odours, readily conjecturing that
+Carathis was engaged in her favourite amusements, strenuously exhorted
+them not to be alarmed.  Him, however, they treated as an old poltroon;
+and forbore not to style him a rascally traitor.  The camels and
+dromedaries were advancing with water, but no one knew by which way to
+enter the tower.  Whilst the populace was obstinate in forcing the doors,
+a violent east wind drove such a volume of flame against them, as at
+first forced them off; but afterwards, rekindled their zeal.  At the same
+time, the stench of the horns and mummies increasing, most of the crowd
+fell backward in a state of suffocation.  Those that kept their feet
+mutually wondered at the cause of the smell, and admonished each other to
+retire.  Morakanabad, more sick than the rest, remained in a piteous
+condition.  Holding his nose with one hand, he persisted in his efforts
+with the other to burst open the doors, and obtain admission.  A hundred
+and forty of the strongest and most resolute at length accomplished their
+purpose.  Having gained the staircase by their violent exertions, they
+attained a great height in a quarter of an hour.
+
+Carathis, alarmed at the signs of her mutes, advanced to the staircase,
+went down a few steps, and heard several voices calling out from below:
+
+“You shall in a moment have water!”
+
+Being rather alert, considering her age, she presently regained the top
+of the tower, and bade her son suspend the sacrifice for some minutes,
+adding:
+
+“We shall soon be enabled to render it more grateful.  Certain dolts of
+your subjects, imagining, no doubt, that we were on fire, have been rash
+enough to break through those doors, which had hitherto remained
+inviolate, for the sake of bringing up water.  They are very kind, you
+must allow, so soon to forget the wrongs you have done them: but that is
+of little moment.  Let us offer them to the Giaour.  Let them come up:
+our mutes, who neither want strength nor experience, will soon despatch
+them, exhausted as they are with fatigue.”
+
+“Be it so,” answered the Caliph, “provided we finish, and I dine.”
+
+In fact, these good people, out of breath from ascending eleven thousand
+stairs in such haste, and chagrined at having spilt, by the way, the
+water they had taken, were no sooner arrived at the top than the blaze of
+the flames and the fumes of the mummies at once overpowered their senses.
+It was a pity! for they beheld not the agreeable smile with which the
+mutes and the negresses adjusted the cord to their necks: these amiable
+personages rejoiced, however, no less at the scene.  Never before had the
+ceremony of strangling been performed with so much facility.  They all
+fell without the least resistance or struggle; so that Vathek, in the
+space of a few moments, found himself surrounded by the dead bodies of
+his most faithful subjects, all of which were thrown on the top of the
+pile.
+
+Carathis, whose presence of mind never forsook her, perceiving that she
+had carcases sufficient to complete her oblation, commanded the chains to
+be stretched across the staircase, and the iron doors barricaded, that no
+more might come up.
+
+No sooner were these orders obeyed, than the tower shook; the dead bodies
+vanished in the flames; which at once changed from a swarthy crimson to a
+bright rose colour.  An ambient vapour emitted the most exquisite
+fragrance; the marble columns rang with harmonious sounds, and the
+liquefied horns diffused a delicious perfume.  Carathis, in transports,
+anticipated the success of her enterprise; whilst the mutes and
+negresses, to whom these sweets had given the cholic, retired to their
+cells grumbling.
+
+Scarcely were they gone, when, instead of the pile, horns, mummies, and
+ashes, the Caliph both saw and felt, with a degree of pleasure which he
+could not express, a table, covered with the most magnificent repast:
+flaggons of wine, and vases of exquisite sherbet, floating on snow.  He
+availed himself, without scruple, of such an entertainment; and had
+already laid hands on a lamb stuffed with pistachios, whilst Carathis was
+privately drawing from a fillagreen urn, a parchment that seemed to be
+endless; and which had escaped the notice of her son.  Totally occupied,
+in gratifying an importunate appetite, he left her to peruse it, without
+interruption; which having finished, she said to him, in an authoritative
+tone,
+
+“Put an end to your gluttony, and hear the splendid promises with which
+you are favoured!”  She then read, as follows:
+
+“Vathek, my well-beloved, thou hast surpassed my hopes: my nostrils have
+been regaled by the savour of thy mummies, thy horns; and, still more, by
+the lives devoted on the pile.  At the full of the moon, cause the bands
+of thy musicians, and thy tymbals, to be heard; depart from thy palace
+surrounded by all the pageants of majesty; thy most faithful slaves, thy
+best beloved wives; thy most magnificent litters; thy richest loaden
+camels; and set forward on thy way to Istakar.  There await I thy coming.
+That is the region of wonders.  There shalt thou receive the diadem of
+Gian Ben Gian, {50} the talismans of Soliman, and the treasures of the
+preadimite Sultans: there shalt thou be solaced with all kinds of
+delight.  But, beware how thou enterest any dwelling on thy route, or
+thou shalt feel the effects of my anger.”
+
+The Caliph, who, notwithstanding his habitual luxury, had never before
+dined with so much satisfaction, gave full scope to the joy of these
+golden tidings, and betook himself to drinking anew.  Carathis, whose
+antipathy to wine was by no means insuperable, failed not to supply a
+reason for every bumper, which they ironically quaffed to the health of
+Mahomet.  This infernal liquor completed their impious temerity, and
+prompted them to utter a profusion of blasphemies.  They gave a loose to
+their wit, at the expense of the ass of Balaam, the dog of the seven
+sleepers, and the other animals admitted into the paradise of Mahomet.
+In this sprightly humour they descended the eleven thousand stairs,
+diverting themselves as they went at the anxious faces they saw on the
+square, through the oilets of the tower, and at length arrived at the
+royal apartments by the subterranean passage.  Bababalouk was parading to
+and fro, and issuing his mandates with great pomp to the eunuchs, who
+were snuffing the lights and painting the eyes of the Circassians.  No
+sooner did he catch sight of the Caliph and his mother than he exclaimed,
+
+“Hah! you have then, I perceive, escaped from the flames; I was not,
+however, altogether out of doubt.”
+
+“Of what moment is it to us what you thought or think?” cried Carathis
+“go, speed, tell Morakanabad that we immediately want him; and take care
+how you stop by the way to make your insipid reflections.”
+
+Morakanabad delayed not to obey the summons, and was received by Vathek
+and his mother with great solemnity.  They told him with an air of
+composure and commiseration that the fire at the top of the tower was
+extinguished, but that it had cost the lives of the brave people who
+sought to assist them.
+
+“Still more misfortunes!” cried Morakanabad with a sigh.  “Ah, commander
+of the faithful, our holy prophet is certainly irritated against us! it
+behoves you to appease him.”
+
+“We will appease him hereafter,” replied the Caliph, with a smile that
+augured nothing of good.  “You will have leisure sufficient for your
+supplications during my absence; for this country is the bane of my
+health.  I am disgusted with the mountain of the Four Fountains, and am
+resolved to go and drink of the stream of Rocnabad. {51}  I long to
+refresh myself in the delightful valleys which it waters.  Do you, with
+the advice of my mother, govern my dominions; and take care to supply
+whatever her experiments may demand; for you well know that our tower
+abounds in materials for the advancement of science.”
+
+The tower but ill suited Morakanabad’s taste.  Immense treasures had been
+lavished upon it, and nothing had he ever seen carried thither but female
+negroes, mutes, and abominable drugs.  Nor did he know well what to think
+of Carathis, who like a chamelion could assume all possible colours.  Her
+cursed eloquence had often driven the poor Mussulman to his last shifts.
+He considered, however, that if she possessed but few good qualities, her
+son had still fewer, and that the alternative, on the whole, would be in
+her favour.  Consoled, therefore, with this reflection, he went in good
+spirits to soothe the populace, and make the proper arrangements for his
+master’s journey.
+
+Vathek, to conciliate the spirits of the subterranean palace, resolved
+that his expedition should be uncommonly splendid.  With this view he
+confiscated on all sides the property of his subjects, whilst his worthy
+mother stripped the seraglios she visited of the gems they contained.
+She collected all the sempstresses and embroiderers of Samarah, and other
+cities, to the distance of sixty leagues, to prepare pavilions,
+palanquins, sofas, canopies, and litters, for the train of the monarch.
+There was not left in Masulipatan a single piece of chintz; and so much
+muslin had been bought up to dress out Bababalouk and the other black
+eunuchs, that there remained not an ell in the whole Irak of Babylon.
+
+During these preparations, Carathis, who never lost sight of her great
+object, which was to obtain favour with the powers of darkness, made
+select parties of the fairest and most delicate ladies of the city; but
+in the midst of their gaiety she contrived to introduce serpents amongst
+them, and to break pots of scorpions under the table.  They all bit to a
+wonder, and Carathis would have left them to bite, were it not that to
+fill up the time, she now and then amused herself in curing their wounds
+with an excellent anodyne of her own invention; for this good princess
+abhorred being indolent.
+
+Vathek, who was not altogether so active as his mother, devoted his time
+to the sole gratification of his senses, in the palaces which were
+severally dedicated to them.  He disgusted himself no more with the divan
+or the mosque.  One half of Samarah followed his example, whilst the
+other lamented the progress of corruption.
+
+In the midst of these transactions, the embassy returned which had been
+sent in pious times to Mecca.  It consisted of the most reverend
+moullahs, {53} who had fulfilled their commission, and brought back one
+of those precious besoms which are used to sweep the sacred caaba; a
+present truly worthy of the greatest potentate on earth!
+
+The Caliph happened at this instant to be engaged in an apartment by no
+means adapted to the reception of embassies, though adorned with a
+certain magnificence, not only to render it agreeable, but also because
+he resorted to it frequently, and staid a considerable time together.
+Whilst occupied in this retreat, he heard the voice of Bababalouk calling
+out from between the door and the tapestry that hung before it:
+
+“Here are the excellent Mahomet Ebn Edris al Shafei, and the seraphic Al
+Mouhadethin, who have brought the besom from Mecca, and with tears of joy
+entreat they may present it to your majesty in person.”
+
+“Let them bring the besom hither, it may be of use,” said Vathek, who was
+still employed, not having quite racked off his wine.
+
+“How!” answered Bababalouk, half aloud and amazed.
+
+“Obey,” replied the Caliph, “for it is my sovereign will; go instantly!
+vanish! for here will I receive the good folk who have thus filled thee
+with joy.”
+
+The eunuch departed muttering, and bade the venerable train attend him.
+A sacred rapture was diffused amongst these reverend old men.  Though
+fatigued with the length of their expedition, they followed Bababalouk
+with an alertness almost miraculous, and felt themselves highly flattered
+as they swept along the stately porticos, that the Caliph would not
+receive them like ambassadors in ordinary, in his hall of audience.  Soon
+reaching the interior of the harem (where, through blinds of persian they
+perceived large soft eyes, dark and blue, that went and came like
+lightning) penetrated with respect and wonder, and full of their
+celestial mission, they advanced in procession towards the small
+corridors that appeared to terminate in nothing, but nevertheless led to
+the cell where the Caliph expected their coming.
+
+“What! is the commander of the faithful sick?” said Ebn Edris al Shafei,
+in a low voice to his companion.
+
+“I rather think he is in his oratory,” answered Al Mouhadethin.
+
+Vathek, who heard the dialogue, cried out “What imports it you how I am
+employed? approach without delay.”
+
+They advanced, and Bababalouk almost sunk with confusion, {55} whilst the
+Caliph, without showing himself, put forth his hand from behind the
+tapestry that hung before the door, and demanded of them the besom.
+
+Having prostrated themselves as well as the corridor would permit, and
+even in a tolerable semi-circle, the venerable Al Shafei, drawing forth
+the besom from the embroidered and perfumed scarfs in which it had been
+enveloped, and secured from the profane gaze of vulgar eyes, arose from
+his associates and advanced with an air of the most awful solemnity
+towards the supposed oratory; but with what astonishment! with what
+horror was he seized!
+
+Vathek, bursting out into a villainous laugh, snatched the besom from his
+trembling hand, and fixing upon it some cobwebs that hung suspended from
+the ceiling, gravely brushed away till not a single one remained.
+
+The old men, overpowered with amazement, were unable to lift their beards
+from the ground; for as Vathek had carelessly left the tapestry between
+them half drawn, they were witnesses to the whole transaction.  Their
+tears gushed forth on the marble.  Al Mouhadethin swooned through
+mortification and fatigue, whilst the Caliph, throwing himself backward
+on his seat, shouted and clapped his hands without mercy.  At last,
+addressing himself to Bababalouk:
+
+“My dear black,” said he, “go, regale these pious poor souls with my good
+wine from Shiraz; and as they can boast of having seen more of my palace
+than any one besides, let them also visit my office courts, and lead them
+out by the back steps that go to my stables.”  Having said this, he threw
+the besom in their face, and went to enjoy the laugh with Carathis.
+
+Bababalouk did all in his power to console the ambassadors, but the two
+most infirm expired on the spot; the rest were carried to their beds,
+from whence, being heart-broken with sorrow and shame, they never arose.
+
+The succeeding night, Vathek, attended by his mother, ascended the tower
+to see if everything were ready for his journey, for he had great faith
+in the influence of the stars.  The planets appeared in their most
+favourable aspects.  The Caliph, to enjoy so flattering a sight, supped
+gaily on the roof, and fancied that he heard, during his repast, loud
+shouts of laughter resound through the sky, in a manner that inspired the
+fullest assurance.
+
+All was in motion at the palace; lights were kept burning through the
+whole of the night; the sound of implements, and of artisans finishing
+their work; the voices of women and their guardians who sung at their
+embroidery; all conspired to interrupt the stillness of nature, and
+infinitely delight the heart of Vathek, who imagined himself going in
+triumph to sit upon the throne of Soliman.
+
+The people were not less satisfied than himself; all assisted to
+accelerate the moment which should rescue them from the wayward caprices
+of so extravagant a master.
+
+The day preceding the departure of this infatuated prince was employed by
+Carathis in repeating to him the decrees of the mysterious parchment,
+which she had thoroughly gotten by heart; and in recommending him not to
+enter the habitation of any one by the way; “for well thou knowest,”
+added she, “how liquorish thy taste is after good dishes and young
+damsels; let me therefore enjoin thee to be content with thy old cooks,
+who are the best in the world; and not to forget that in thy ambulatory
+seraglio there are three dozen pretty faces, which Bababalouk hath not
+yet unveiled.  I, myself, have a great desire to watch over thy conduct,
+and visit the subterranean palace, which no doubt contains whatever can
+interest persons like us.  There is nothing so pleasing as retiring to
+caverns; my taste for dead bodies and everything like mummy is decided;
+and I am confident thou wilt see the most exquisite of their kind.
+Forget me not then, but the moment thou art in possession of the
+talismans which are to open to thee the mineral kingdoms, and the centre
+of the earth itself, fail not to dispatch some trusty genius to take me
+and my cabinet, for the oil of the serpents I have pinched to death will
+be a pretty present to the Giaour, who cannot but be charmed with such
+dainties.”
+
+Scarcely had Carathis ended this edifying discourse, when the sun,
+setting behind the mountain of the Four Fountains, gave place to the
+rising moon.  This planet being that evening at full, appeared of unusual
+beauty and magnitude in the eyes of the women, the eunuchs, and the
+pages, who were all impatient to set forward.  The city re-echoed with
+shouts of joy and flourishing of trumpets.  Nothing was visible but
+plumes nodding on pavilions, and aigrets shining in the mild lustre of
+the moon.  The spacious square resembled an immense parterre, variegated
+with the most stately tulips of the east.
+
+Arrayed in the robes which were only worn at the most distinguished
+ceremonials, and supported by his vizier and Bababalouk, the Caliph
+descended the grand staircase of the tower in the sight of all his
+people.  He could not forbear pausing at intervals to admire the superb
+appearance which everywhere courted his view, whilst the whole multitude,
+even to the camels with their sumptuous burdens, knelt down before him.
+For some time a general stillness prevailed, which nothing happened to
+disturb, but the shrill screams of some eunuchs in the rear.  These
+vigilant guards having remarked certain cages of the ladies swagging
+somewhat awry, and discovered that a few adventurous gallants had
+contrived to get in, soon dislodged the enraptured culprits, and
+consigned them with good commendations, to the surgeons of the serail.
+The majesty of so magnificent a spectacle was not, however, violated by
+incidents like these.  Vathek, meanwhile, saluted the moon with an
+idolatrous air, that neither pleased Morakanabad nor the doctors of the
+law, any more than the viziers and grandees of his court, who were all
+assembled to enjoy the last view of their sovereign.
+
+At length the clarions and trumpets from the top of the tower announced
+the prelude of departure.  Though the instruments were in unison with
+each other, yet a singular dissonance was blended with their sounds.
+This proceeded from Carathis, who was singing her direful orisons to the
+Giaour, whilst the negresses and mutes supplied thorough bass without
+articulating a word.  The good Mussulmans fancied that they heard the
+sullen hum of those nocturnal insects which presage evil, and importuned
+Vathek to beware how he ventured his sacred person.
+
+On a given signal the great standard of the Califat was displayed; twenty
+thousand lances shone around it; and the Caliph, treading royally on the
+cloth of gold which had been spread for his feet, ascended his litter
+amidst the general awe that possessed his subjects.
+
+The expedition commenced with the utmost order, and so entire a silence,
+that even the locusts were heard from the thickets on the plain of
+Catoul.  Gaiety and good humour prevailing, six good leagues were past
+before the dawn; and the morning star was still glittering in the
+firmament when the whole of this numerous train had halted on the banks
+of the Tigris, where they encamped to repose for the rest of the day.
+
+The three days that followed were spent in the same manner, but on the
+fourth the heavens looked angry, lightnings broke forth in frequent
+flashes, re-echoing peals of thunder succeeded, and the trembling
+Circassians clung with all their might to their ugly guardians.  The
+Caliph himself was greatly inclined to take shelter in the large town of
+Gulchissar, the governor of which came forth to meet him, and tendered
+every kind of refreshment the place could supply.  But having examined
+his tablets, he suffered the rain to soak him almost to the bone,
+notwithstanding the importunity of his first favourites.  Though he began
+to regret the palace of the senses, yet he lost not sight of his
+enterprise, and his sanguine expectations confirmed his resolution.  His
+geographers were ordered to attend him, but the weather proved so
+terrible, that these poor people exhibited a lamentable appearance; and
+as no long journeys had been undertaken since the time of Haroun al
+Raschid, their maps of the different countries were in a still worse
+plight than themselves.  Every one was ignorant which way to turn; for
+Vathek, though well versed in the course of the heavens, no longer knew
+his situation on earth.  He thundered even louder than the elements, and
+muttered forth certain hints of the bowstring which were not very
+soothing to literary ears.  Disgusted at the toilsome weariness of the
+way, he determined to cross over the craggy heights, and follow the
+guidance of a peasant, who undertook to bring him, in four days, to
+Rocnabad.  Remonstrances were all to no purpose, his resolution was
+fixed, and an invasion commenced on the province of the goats, who sped
+away in large troops before them.  It was curious to view on these half
+calcined rocks camels richly caparisoned, and pavilions of gold and silk
+waving on their summits, which till then had never been covered, but with
+sapless thistles and fern.
+
+The females and eunuchs uttered shrill wailings at the sight of the
+precipices below them, and the dreary prospects that opened in the vast
+gorges of the mountains.  Before they could reach the ascent of the
+steepest rock night overtook them, and a boisterous tempest arose, which
+having rent the awnings of the palanquins and cages, exposed to the raw
+gusts the poor ladies within, who had never before felt so piercing a
+cold.  The dark clouds that overcast the face of the sky deepened the
+horrors of this disastrous night, insomuch that nothing could be heard
+distinctly but the mewling of pages, and lamentations of sultanas.
+
+To increase the general misfortune, the frightful uproar of wild beasts
+resounded at a distance, and there were soon perceived in the forest they
+were skirting the glaring of eyes which could belong only to devils or
+tigers.  The pioneers, who as well as they could, had marked out a track,
+and a part of the advanced guard were devoured before they had been in
+the least apprised of their danger.  The confusion that prevailed was
+extreme.  Wolves, tigers, and other carnivorous animals, invited by the
+howling of their companions, flocked together from every quarter.  The
+crushing of bones was heard on all sides, and a fearful rush of wings
+over head, for now vultures also began to be of the party.
+
+The terror at length reached the main body of the troops which surrounded
+the monarch and his harem, at the distance of two leagues from the scene.
+Vathek (voluptuously reposed in his capacious litter upon cushions of
+silk, with two little pages beside him, of complexions more fair than the
+enamel of Franguestan, who were occupied in keeping off flies) was
+soundly asleep, and contemplating in his dreams the treasures of Soliman.
+The shrieks, however, of his wives awoke him with a start, and instead of
+the Giaour with his key of gold, he beheld Bababalouk full of
+consternation.
+
+“Sire,” exclaimed this good servant of the most potent of monarchs,
+“misfortune has arrived at its height; wild beasts, who entertain no more
+reverence for your sacred person than for that of a dead ass, have beset
+your camels and their drivers: thirty of the richest laden are already
+become their prey, as well as all your confectioners, your cooks, and
+purveyors, and unless our holy prophet should protect us, we shall have
+all eaten our last meal.”
+
+At the mention of eating, the Caliph lost all patience.  He began to
+bellow, and even beat himself, for there was no seeing in the dark.  The
+rumour every instant increased, and Bababalouk finding no good could be
+done with his master stopped both his ears against the hurly-burly of the
+harem, and called out aloud:
+
+“Come, ladies and brothers! all hands to work! strike light in a moment!
+never shall it be said that the commander of the faithful served to
+regale these infidel brutes.”
+
+Though there wanted not in this bevy of beauties a sufficient number of
+capricious and wayward, yet, on the present occasion they were all
+compliance.  Fires were visible in a twinkling in all their cages.  Ten
+thousand torches were lighted at once.  The Caliph himself seized a large
+one of wax; every person followed his example; and by kindling ropes ends
+dipped in oil and fastened on poles, an amazing blaze was spread.  The
+rocks were covered with the splendour of sunshine.  The trails of sparks
+wafted by the wind, communicated to the dry fern, of which there was
+plenty.  Serpents were observed to crawl forth from their retreats with
+amazement and hissings, whilst the horses snorted, stamped the ground,
+tossed their noses in the air, and plunged about without mercy.
+
+One of the forests of cedar that bordered their way took fire, and the
+branches that overhung the path extending their flames to the muslins and
+chintzes which covered the cages of the ladies, obliged them to jump out
+at the peril of their necks.  Vathek, who vented on the occasion a
+thousand blasphemies, was himself compelled to touch with his sacred feet
+the naked earth.
+
+Never had such an incident happened before.  Full of mortification, shame
+and despondence, and not knowing how to walk, the ladies fell into the
+dirt.
+
+“Must I go on foot,” said one.
+
+“Must I wet my feet,” cried another.
+
+“Must I soil my dress,” asked a third.
+
+“Execrable Bababalouk,” exclaimed all; “Outcast of hell! what hadst thou
+to do with torches?  Better were it to be eaten by tigers than to fall
+into our present condition; we are for ever undone.  Not a porter is
+there in the army, nor a currier of camels but hath seen some part of our
+bodies, and what is worse, our very faces!”
+
+On saying this, the most bashful amongst them hid their foreheads on the
+ground, whilst such as had more boldness flew at Bababalouk, but he, well
+apprised of their humour, and not wanting in shrewdness, betook himself
+to his heels along with his comrades, all dropping their torches and
+striking their tymbals.
+
+It was not less light than in the brightest of the dog-days, and the
+weather was hot in proportion; but how degrading was the spectacle, to
+behold the Caliph bespattered like an ordinary mortal!  As the exercise
+of his faculties seemed to be suspended, one of his Ethiopian wives (for
+he delighted in variety) clasped him in her arms, threw him upon her
+shoulder like a sack of dates, and finding that the fire was hemming them
+in, set off with no small expedition, considering the weight of her
+burden.  The other ladies who had just learned the use of their feet
+followed her; their guards galloped after; and the camel drivers brought
+up the rear as fast as their charge would permit.
+
+They soon reached the spot where the wild beasts had commenced the
+carnage, and which they had too much spirit to leave, notwithstanding the
+approaching tumult, and the luxurious supper they had made.  Bababalouk
+nevertheless seized on a few of the plumpest, which were unable to budge
+from the place, and began to flay them with admirable adroitness.  The
+cavalcade being got so far from the conflagration as that the heat felt
+rather grateful than violent, it was immediately resolved on to halt.
+The tattered chintzes were picked up; the scraps left by the wolves and
+tigers interred; and vengeance was taken on some dozens of vultures that
+were too much glutted to rise on the wing.  The camels which had been
+left unmolested to make sal-ammoniac being numbered, and the ladies once
+more inclosed in their cages, the imperial tent was pitched on the
+levellest ground they could find.
+
+Vathek, reposing upon a matress of down, and tolerably recovered from the
+jolting of the Ethiopian, who, to his feelings seemed the roughest
+trotting jade he had hitherto mounted, called out for something to eat;
+but alas! those delicate cakes which had been baked in silver ovens for
+his royal mouth, those rich manchets, amber comfits, flaggons of Schiraz
+wine, porcelain vases of snow, and grapes from the banks of the Tigris,
+were all irremediably lost; and nothing had Bababalouk to present in
+their stead, but a roasted wolf, vultures à la daube, aromatic herbs of
+the most acrid poignancy, rotten truffles, boiled thistles, and such
+other wild plants as must ulcerate the throat and parch up the tongue.
+Nor was he better provided in the article of drink, for he could procure
+nothing to accompany these irritating viands but a few phials of
+abominable brandy, which had been secreted by the scullions in their
+slippers.
+
+Vathek made wry faces at so savage a repast, and Bababalouk answered them
+with shrugs and contortions.  The Caliph however ate with tolerable
+appetite, and fell into a nap that lasted six hours.  The splendour of
+the sun, reflected from the white cliffs of the mountains in spite of the
+curtains that inclosed him, at length disturbed his repose.  He awoke
+terrified, and stung to the quick by those wormwood-coloured flies which
+emit from their wings a suffocating stench.  The miserable monarch was
+perplexed how to act, though his wits were not idle in seeking
+expedients, whilst Bababalouk lay snoring amidst a swarm of those
+insects, that busily thronged to pay court to his nose.  The little
+pages, famished with hunger, had dropped their fans on the ground, and
+exerted their dying voices in bitter reproaches on the Caliph, who now
+for the first time heard the language of truth.
+
+Thus stimulated, he renewed his imprecations against the Giaour, and
+bestowed upon Mahomet some soothing expressions.
+
+“Where am I?” cried he; “What are these dreadful rocks; these valleys of
+darkness?  Are we arrived at the horrible Kaf? {67a}  Is the Simurgh
+{67b} coming to pluck out my eyes as a punishment for undertaking this
+impious enterprise?”
+
+Having said this, he bellowed like a calf, and turned himself towards an
+outlet in the side of his pavilion.  But alas! what objects occurred to
+his view! on one side a plain of black sand that appeared to be
+unbounded, and on the other perpendicular crags bristled over with those
+abominable thistles which had so severely lacerated his tongue.  He
+fancied, however, that he perceived amongst the brambles and briars some
+gigantic flowers, but was mistaken, for these were only the dangling
+palampores and variegated tatters of his gay retinue.  As there were
+several clefts in the rock from whence water seemed to have flowed,
+Vathek applied his ear with the hope of catching the sound of some latent
+runnel, but could only distinguish the low murmurs of his people, who
+were repining at their journey, and complaining for the want of water.
+
+“To what purpose,” asked they, “have we been brought hither?  Hath our
+Caliph another tower to build? or have the relentless Afrits {67c} whom
+Carathis so much loves, fixed in this place their abode?”
+
+At the name of Carathis, Vathek recollected the tablets he had received
+from his mother, who assured him they were fraught with preternatural
+qualities, and advised him to consult them as emergencies might require.
+Whilst he was engaged in turning them over, he heard a shout of joy, and
+a loud clapping of hands.  The curtains of his pavilion were soon drawn
+back, and he beheld Bababalouk, followed by a troop of his favourites,
+conducting two dwarfs, each a cubit high, who brought between them a
+large basket of melons, oranges, and pomegranites.  They were singing in
+the sweetest tones the words that follow:
+
+“We dwell on the top of these rocks, in a cabin of rushes and canes; the
+eagles envy us our nest; a small spring supplies us with abdest, and we
+daily repeat prayers which the prophet approves.  We love you, O
+commander of the faithful! our master, the good emir Fakreddin, loves you
+also; he reveres in your person the vicegerent of Mahomet.  Little as we
+are, in us he confides; he knows our hearts to be good, as our bodies are
+contemptible, and hath placed us here to aid those who are bewildered on
+these dreary mountains.  Last night, whilst we were occupied within our
+cell in reading the holy koran, a sudden hurricane blew out our lights
+and rocked our habitation.  For two whole hours a palpable darkness
+prevailed: but we heard sounds at a distance which we conjectured to
+proceed from the bells of a cafila, passing over the rocks.  Our ears
+were soon filled with deplorable shrieks, frightful roarings, and the
+sound of tymbals.  Chilled with terror, we concluded that the Deggial
+{68} with his exterminating angels had sent forth their plagues on the
+earth.  In the midst of these melancholy reflections, we perceived flames
+of the deepest red glow in the horizon, and found ourselves in a few
+moments covered with flakes of fire.  Amazed at so strange an appearance,
+we took up the volume dictated by the blessed intelligence, and kneeling
+by the light of the fire that surrounded us, we recited the verse which
+says: ‘Put no trust in any thing but the mercy of heaven; there is no
+help save in the holy prophet; the mountain of Kaf itself may tremble; it
+is the power of Alla only that cannot be moved.’  After having pronounced
+these words, we felt consolation, and our minds were hushed into a sacred
+repose.  Silence ensued, and our ears clearly distinguished a voice in
+the air, saying: ‘Servants of my faithful servant, go down to the happy
+valley of Fakreddin; tell him that an illustrious opportunity now offers
+to satiate the thirst of his hospitable heart.  The commander of true
+believers is this day bewildered amongst these mountains, and stands in
+need of thy aid.’  We obeyed with joy the angelic mission, and our
+master, filled with pious zeal, hath culled with his own hands these
+melons, oranges, and pomegranites.  He is following us with a hundred
+dromedaries laden with the purest waters of his fountains, and is coming
+to kiss the fringe of your consecrated robe, and implore you to enter his
+humble habitation, which, placed amidst these barren wilds, resembles an
+emerald set in lead.”
+
+The dwarfs having ended their address, remained still standing, and with
+hands crossed upon their bosoms, preserved a respectful silence.
+
+Vathek, in the midst of this curious harangue seized the basket, and long
+before it was finished, the fruits had dissolved in his mouth.  As he
+continued to eat, his piety increased, and in the same breath which
+recited his prayers, he called for the koran and sugar.
+
+Such was the state of his mind when the tablets, which were thrown by at
+the approach of the dwarfs, again attracted his eye.  He took them up,
+but was ready to drop on the ground when he beheld, in large red
+characters, these words inscribed by Carathis, which were indeed enough
+to make him tremble.
+
+“Beware of thy old doctors, and their puny messengers of but one cubit
+high; distrust their pious frauds; and instead of eating their melons,
+impale on a spit the bearers of them.  Shouldst thou be such a fool as to
+visit them, the portal of the subterranean palace will be shut in thy
+face, and with such force as shall shake thee asunder; thy body shall be
+spit upon, and bats will engender in thy belly.”
+
+“To what tends this ominous rhapsody?” cries the Caliph; “and must I then
+perish in these deserts with thirst, whilst I may refresh myself in the
+valley of melons and cucumbers?  Accursed be the Giaour with his portal
+of ebony! he hath made me dance attendance too long already.  Besides,
+who shall prescribe laws to me?  I, forsooth, must not enter any one’s
+habitation!  Be it so, but what one can I enter that is not my own.”
+
+Bababalouk, who lost not a syllable of this soliloquy, applauded it with
+all his heart; and the ladies, for the first time, agreed with him in
+opinion.  The dwarfs were entertained, caressed, and seated with great
+ceremony on little cushions of satin.  The symmetry of their persons was
+the subject of criticism; not an inch of them was suffered to pass
+unexamined.  Nick-nacks and dainties were offered in profusion, but all
+were declined with respectful gravity.  They clambered up the sides of
+the Caliph’s seat, and placing themselves each on one of his shoulders,
+began to whisper prayers in his ears.  Their tongues quivered like the
+leaves of a poplar, and the patience of Vathek was almost exhausted, when
+the acclamations of the troops announced the approach of Fakreddin, who
+was come with a hundred old grey-beards, and as many korans and
+dromedaries.  They instantly set about their ablutions, and began to
+repeat the Bismillah.  Vathek, to get rid of these officious monitors,
+followed their example, for his hands were burning.
+
+The good Emir, who was punctiliously religious, and likewise a great
+dealer in compliments, made an harangue five times more prolix and
+insipid than his harbingers had already delivered.  The Caliph, unable
+any longer to refrain, exclaimed:
+
+“For the love of Mahomet, my dear Fakreddin, have done! let us proceed to
+your valley, and enjoy the fruits that heaven hath vouchsafed you.”  The
+hint of proceeding put all into motion.  The venerable attendants of the
+emir set forward somewhat slowly, but Vathek having ordered his little
+pages, in private, to goad on the dromedaries, loud fits of laughter
+broke forth from the cages, for the unwieldy curvetting of these poor
+beasts, and the ridiculous distress of their superannuated riders
+afforded the ladies no small entertainment.
+
+They descended, however, unhurt into the valley, by the large steps which
+the emir had cut in the rock; and already the murmuring of streams and
+the rustling of leaves began to catch their attention.  The cavalcade
+soon entered a path, which was skirted by flowering shrubs, and extended
+to a vast wood of palm-trees whose branches overspread a building of hewn
+stone.  This edifice was crowned with nine domes, and adorned with as
+many portals of bronze, on which was engraven the following inscription:
+
+“This is the asylum of pilgrims, the refuge of travellers, and the
+depository of secrets for all parts of the world.”
+
+Nine pages beautiful as the day, and clothed in robes of Egyptian linen,
+very long and very modest, were standing at each door.  They received the
+whole retinue with an easy and inviting air.  Four of the most amiable
+placed the Caliph on a magnificent taktrevan; four others, somewhat less
+graceful, took charge of Bababalouk, who capered for joy at the snug
+little cabin that fell to his share; the pages that remained, waited on
+the rest of the train.
+
+When every thing masculine was gone out of sight, the gate of a large
+inclosure on the right turned on its harmonious hinges, and a young
+female of a slender form came forth.  Her light brown hair floated in the
+hazy breeze of the twilight.  A troop of young maidens, like the
+Pleiades, attended her on tip-toe.  They hastened to the pavilions that
+contained the sultanas; and the young lady gracefully bending said to
+them:
+
+“Charming princesses, every thing is ready; we have prepared beds for
+your repose, and strewed your apartments with jasamine; no insects will
+keep off slumber from visiting your eyelids; we will dispel them with a
+thousand plumes.  Come then, amiable ladies! refresh your delicate feet
+and your ivory limbs in baths of rose water, and by the light of perfumed
+lamps your servants will amuse you with tales.”
+
+The sultanas accepted with pleasure these obliging offers, and followed
+the young lady to the emir’s harem, where we must for a moment leave them
+and return to the Caliph.
+
+Vathek found himself beneath a vast dome illuminated by a thousand lamps
+of rock crystal, as many vases of the same material filled with excellent
+sherbet sparkled on a large table, where a profusion of viands were
+spread.  Amongst others were sweetbreads stewed in milk of almonds,
+saffron soups, and lamb à la crême, of all of which the Caliph was
+amazingly fond.  He took of each as much as he was able; testified his
+sense of the emir’s friendship by the gaiety of his heart; and made the
+dwarfs dance against their will; for these little devotees durst not
+refuse the commander of the faithful.  At last he spread himself on the
+sofa and slept sounder than he had ever before.
+
+Beneath this dome a general silence prevailed, for there was nothing to
+disturb it but the jaws of Bababalouk, who had untrussed himself to eat
+with greater advantage, being anxious to make amends for his fast in the
+mountains.  As his spirits were too high to admit of his sleeping, and
+not loving to be idle, he proposed with himself to visit the harem, and
+repair to his charge of the ladies, to examine if they had been properly
+lubricated with the balm of Mecca, if their eye-brows and tresses were in
+order, and in a word, to perform all the little offices they might need.
+He sought for a long time together, but without being able to find out
+the door.  He durst not speak aloud for fear of disturbing the Caliph,
+and not a soul was stirring in the precincts of the palace.  He almost
+despaired of effecting his purpose, when a low whispering just reached
+his ear: it came from the dwarfs, who were returned to their old
+occupation, and for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time in their lives
+were reading over the koran.  They very politely invited Bababalouk to be
+of their party, but his head was full of other concerns.  The dwarfs,
+though scandalized at his dissolute morals, directed him to the
+apartments he wanted to find.  His way thither lay through a hundred dark
+corridors, along which he groped as he went, and at last began to catch,
+from the extremity of a passage, the charming gossiping of women, which
+not a little delighted his heart.
+
+“Ah, ah! what not yet asleep?” cried he, and taking long strides as he
+spoke, “did you not suspect me of abjuring my charge?  I stayed but to
+finish what my master had left.”
+
+Two of the black eunuchs on hearing a voice so loud detached a party in
+haste, sabre in hand, to discover the cause, but presently was repeated
+on all sides:
+
+“’Tis only Bababalouk, no one but Bababalouk!”
+
+This circumspect guardian having gone up to a thin veil of carnation
+colour silk that hung before the doorway, distinguished by means of a
+softened splendour that shone through it, an oval bath of dark porphyry
+surrounded by curtains festooned in large folds.  Through the apertures
+between them, as they were not drawn close, groups of young slaves were
+visible, amongst whom Bababalouk perceived his pupils indulgingly
+expanding their arms, as if to embrace the perfumed water, and refresh
+themselves after their fatigues.  The looks of tender languor, their
+confidential whispers, and the enchanting smiles with which they were
+imparted, the exquisite fragrance of the roses, all combined to inspire a
+voluptuousness which even Bababalouk himself was scarce able to
+withstand.
+
+He summoned up, however, his usual solemnity, and in the peremptory tone
+of authority commanded the ladies instantly to leave the bath.  Whilst he
+was issuing these mandates, the young Nouronihar, daughter of the emir,
+who was sprightly as an antelope, and full of wanton gaiety, beckoned one
+of her slaves to let down the great swing, which was suspended to the
+ceiling by cords of silk, and whilst this was doing winked to her
+companions in the bath, who chagrined to be forced from so soothing a
+state of indolence, began to twist it round Bababalouk, and teaze him
+with a thousand vagaries.
+
+When Nouronihar perceived that he was exhausted with fatigue, she
+accosted him with an arch air of respectful concern, and said:
+
+“My lord, it is not by any means decent that the chief eunuch of the
+Caliph our sovereign should thus continue standing, deign but to recline
+your graceful person upon this sofa, which will burst with vexation if it
+have not the honour to receive you.”
+
+Caught by these flattering accents, Bababalouk gallantly replied:
+
+“Delight of the apple of my eye!  I accept the invitation of thy honied
+lips, and to say truth, my senses are dazzled with the radiance that
+beams from thy charms.”
+
+“Repose, then, at your ease,” replied the beauty, and placed him on the
+pretended sofa, which, quicker than lightning, gave way all at once.  The
+rest of the women having aptly conceived her design, sprang naked from
+the bath and plied the swing with such unmerciful jerks, that it swept
+through the whole compass of a very lofty dome, and took from the poor
+victim all power of respiration.  Sometimes his feet rased the surface of
+the water, and at others the skylight almost flattened his nose.  In vain
+did he pierce the air with the cries of a voice that resembled the
+ringing of a cracked basin, for their peals of laughter were still more
+predominant.
+
+Nouronihar in the inebriety of youthful spirits being used only to
+eunuchs of ordinary harems, and having never seen any thing so royal and
+disgusting, was far more diverted than all of the rest.  She began to
+parody some Persian verses, and sung with an accent most demurely
+piquant:
+
+    “O gentle white dove as thou soar’st through the air,
+    Vouchsafe one kind glance on the mate of thy love:
+    Melodious Philomel I am thy rose;
+    Warble some couplet to ravish my heart!”
+
+The sultanas and their slaves stimulated by these pleasantries persevered
+at the swing with such unremitted assiduity, that at length the cord
+which had secured it snapped suddenly asunder, and Bababalouk fell
+floundering like a turtle to the bottom of the bath.  This accident
+occasioned a universal shout.  Twelve little doors till now unobserved
+flew open at once, and the ladies in an instant made their escape, after
+throwing all the towels on his head, and putting out the lights that
+remained.
+
+The deplorable animal, in water to the chin, overwhelmed with darkness,
+and unable to extricate himself from the warp that embarrassed him, was
+still doomed to hear for his further consolation, the fresh bursts of
+merriment his disaster occasioned.  He bustled but in vain to get from
+the bath, for the margin was become so slippery with the oil spilt in
+breaking the lamps, that at every effort he slid back with a plunge,
+which resounded aloud through the hollow of the dome.  These cursed peals
+of laughter at every relapse were redoubled, and he, who thought the
+place infested rather by devils than women, resolved to cease groping,
+and abide in the bath, where he amused himself with soliloquies
+interspersed with imprecations, of which his malicious neighbours,
+reclining on down, suffered not an accent to escape.  In this delectable
+plight the morning surprised him.  The Caliph, wondering at his absence,
+had caused him to be everywhere sought for.  At last he was drawn forth
+almost smothered from the whisp of linen, and wet even to the marrow.
+Limping, and chattering his teeth, he appeared before his master, who
+inquired what was the matter, and how he came soused in so strange a
+pickle.
+
+“And why did you enter this cursed lodge?” answered Bababalouk, gruffly.
+“Ought a monarch like you to visit with his harem the abode of a grey
+bearded emir who knows nothing of life?  And with what gracious damsels
+does the place too abound!  Fancy to yourself how they have soaked me
+like a burnt crust, and made me dance like a jack-pudding the live-long
+night through on their damnable swing.  What an excellent lesson for your
+sultanas to follow, into whom I have instilled such reserve and decorum!”
+
+Vathek, comprehending not a syllable of all this invective, obliged him
+to relate minutely the transaction; but instead of sympathising with the
+miserable sufferer, he laughed immoderately at the device of the swing,
+and the figure of Bababalouk mounting upon it.  The stung eunuch could
+scarcely preserve the semblance of respect.
+
+“Aye, laugh my lord! laugh,” said he, “but I wish this Nouronihar would
+play some trick on you; she is too wicked to spare even majesty itself.”
+
+These words made for the present but a slight impression on the Caliph,
+but they not long after recurred to his mind.
+
+This conversation was cut short by Fakreddin, who came to request that
+Vathek would join in the prayers and ablutions to be solemnized on a
+spacious meadow, watered by innumerable streams.  The Caliph found the
+waters refreshing, but the prayers abominably irksome.  He diverted
+himself however with the multitude of Calenders, {79a} Santons, {79b} and
+Dervises {79c} who were continually coming and going, but especially with
+the Brahmins, {79d} Faquirs, {79e} and other enthusiasts, who had
+travelled from the heart of India, and halted on their way with the emir.
+These latter had each of them some mummery peculiar to himself.  One
+dragged a huge chain where ever he went, another an ourang-outang, whilst
+a third was furnished with scourges, and all performed to a charm.  Some
+clambered up trees, holding one foot in the air; others poised themselves
+over a fire, and without mercy fillipped their noses.  There were some
+amongst them that cherished vermin, which were not ungrateful in
+requiting their caresses.  These rambling fanatics revolted the hearts of
+the Dervises, the Calenders, and Santons; however the vehemence of their
+aversion soon subsided under the hope that the presence of the Caliph
+would cure their folly, and convert them to the Mussulman faith.  But
+alas! how great was their disappointment! for Vathek, instead of
+preaching to them, treated them as buffoons; bade them present his
+compliments to Visnow and Ixhora, and discovered a predilection for a
+squat old man from the Isle of Serendib, who was more ridiculous than any
+of the rest.
+
+“Come,” said he, “for the love of your gods, bestow a few slaps on your
+chops to amuse me.”
+
+The old fellow offended at such an address began loudly to weep; but as
+he betrayed a villainous drivelling in his tears, the Caliph turned his
+back and listened to Bababalouk, who whispered, whilst he held the
+umbrella over him:
+
+“Your majesty should be cautious of this odd assembly, which hath been
+collected I know not for what.  Is it necessary to exhibit such
+spectacles to a mighty potentate, with interludes of talapoins more mangy
+than dogs?  Were I you, I would command a fire to be kindled, and at once
+purge the earth of the emir, his harem, and all his menagery.”
+
+“Tush, dolt,” answered Vathek, “and know that all this infinitely charms
+me.  Nor shall I leave the meadow till I have visited every hive of these
+pious mendicants.”
+
+Where ever the Caliph directed his course, objects of pity were sure to
+swarm round him: the blind, the purblind, smarts without noses, damsels
+without ears, each to extol the munificence of Fakreddin, who, as well as
+his attendant grey-beards, dealt about gratis plasters and cataplasms to
+all that applied.  At noon a superb corps of cripples made its
+appearance; and soon after advanced by platoons on the plain the
+completest association of invalids that had ever been embodied till then.
+The blind went groping with the blind; the lame limped on together; and
+the maimed made gestures to each other with the only arm that remained.
+The sides of a considerable waterfall were crowded by the deaf, amongst
+whom were some from Pegu, with ears uncommonly handsome and large, but
+were still less able to hear than the rest.  Nor were there wanting
+others in abundance with hump backs, wenny necks, and even horns of an
+exquisite polish.
+
+The emir, to aggrandize the solemnity of the festival in honour of his
+illustrious visitant, ordered the turf to be spread on all sides with
+skins and table cloths, upon which were served up for the good mussulmans
+pilaus of every hue, with other orthodox dishes, and by the express order
+of Vathek, who was shamefully tolerant, small plates of abominations for
+regaling the rest.  This prince on seeing so many mouths put in motion
+began to think it time for employing his own.  In spite, therefore, of
+every remonstrance from the chief of his eunuchs, he resolved to have a
+dinner dressed on the spot.  The complaisant emir immediately gave orders
+for a table to be placed in the shade of the willows.  The first service
+consisted of fish, which they drew from a river flowing over sands of
+gold, at the foot of a lofty hill: these were broiled as fast as taken,
+and served up with a sauce of vinegar and small herbs that grew on Mount
+Sinai; for everything with the emir was excellent and pious.
+
+The dessert was not quite set on when the sound of lutes from the hill
+was repeated by the echoes of the neighbouring mountains.  The Caliph
+with an emotion of pleasure and surprise, had no sooner raised up his
+head than a handful of jasamine dropped on his face.  An abundance of
+tittering succeeded this frolic, and instantly appeared through the
+bushes the elegant forms of several young females, skipping and bounding
+like roes.  The fragrance diffused from their hair struck the sense of
+Vathek, who in an ecstasy, suspending his repast, said to Bababalouk:
+
+“Are the Peries {82} come down from their spheres?  Note her in
+particular whose form is so perfect, venturously running on the brink of
+the precipice, and turning back her head as regardless of nothing but the
+graceful flow of her robe.  With what captivating impatience doth she
+contend with the bushes for her veil? Could it be she who threw the
+jasamine at me?”
+
+“Aye, she it was; and you too would she throw from the top of the rock,”
+answered Bababalouk, “for that is my good friend Nouronihar, who so
+kindly lent me her swing.  My dear lord and master,” added he, twisting a
+twig that hung by the rind from a willow, “let me correct her for her
+want of respect: the emir will have no reason to complain, since (bating
+what I owe to his piety) he is much to be censured for keeping a troop of
+girls on the mountains, whose sharp air gives their blood too brisk a
+circulation.”
+
+“Peace, blasphemer!” said the Caliph: “speak not thus of her who over her
+mountains leads my heart a willing captive.  Contrive, rather, that my
+eyes may be fixed upon hers—that I may respire her sweet breath, as she
+bounds panting along these delightful wilds!”
+
+On saying these words, Vathek extended his arms towards the hill, and
+directing his eyes with an anxiety unknown to him before, endeavoured to
+keep within view the object that enthralled his soul; but her course was
+as difficult to follow as the flight of one of those beautiful blue
+butterflies of Cachmere, which are at once so volatile and rare.
+
+The Caliph, not satisfied with seeing, wished also to hear Nouronihar,
+and eagerly turned to catch the sound of her voice.  At last he
+distinguished her whispering to one of her companions behind the thicket
+from whence she had thrown the jasamine:
+
+“A Caliph, it must be owned, is a fine thing to see, but my little
+Gulchenrouz is much more amiable; one lock of his hair is of more value
+to me than the richest embroidery of the Indies.  I had rather that his
+teeth should mischievously press my finger, than the richest ring of the
+imperial treasure.  Where have you left him, Sutlememe? and why is he now
+not here?”
+
+The agitated Caliph still wished to hear more, but she immediately
+retired with all her attendants.  The fond monarch pursued her with his
+eyes till she was gone out of sight, and then continued like a bewildered
+and benighted traveller, from whom the clouds had obscured the
+constellation that guided his way.  The curtain of night seemed dropped
+before him—everything appeared discoloured.  The falling waters filled
+his soul with dejection, and his tears trickled down the jasamines he had
+caught from Nouronihar, and placed in his inflamed bosom.  He snatched up
+a shining pebble to remind him of the scene where he felt the first
+tumults of love.  Two hours were elapsed, and evening drew on before he
+could resolve to depart from the place.  He often, but in vain, attempted
+to go: a soft languor enervated the powers of his mind.  Extending
+himself on the brink of the stream, he turned his eyes towards the blue
+summits of the mountain, and exclaimed:
+
+“What concealest thou behind thee? what is passing in thy solitudes?
+Whither is she gone?  O heaven! perhaps she is now wandering in the
+grottoes with her happy Gulchenrouz!”
+
+In the mean time the damps began to descend, and the emir, solicitous for
+the health of the Caliph, ordered the imperial litter to be brought.
+Vathek, absorbed in his reveries, was imperceptibly removed and conveyed
+back to the saloon that received him the evening before.
+
+But let us leave the Caliph immersed in his new passion, and attend
+Nouronihar beyond the rocks, where she had again joined her beloved
+Gulchenrouz.  This Gulchenrouz was the son of Ali Hassan, brother to the
+emir, and the most delicate and lovely creature in the world.  Ali
+Hassan, who had been absent ten years on a voyage to the unknown seas,
+committed at his departure this child, the only survivor of many, to the
+care and protection of his brother.  Gulchenrouz could write in various
+characters with precision, and paint upon vellum the most elegant
+arabesques that fancy could devise.  His sweet voice accompanied the lute
+in the most enchanting manner; and when he sung the loves of Megnoun and
+Leileh, or some unfortunate lovers of ancient days, tears insensibly
+overflowed the cheeks of his auditors.  The verses he composed (for like
+Megnoun, he too was a poet) inspired that unresisting languor so
+frequently fatal to the female heart.  The women all doated upon him, for
+though he had passed his thirteenth year, they still detained him in the
+harem.  His dancing was light as the gossamer waved by the zephyrs of
+spring; but his arms which twined so gracefully with those of the young
+girls in the dance, could neither dart the lance in the chase, nor curb
+the steeds that pastured his uncle’s domains.  The bow, however, he drew
+with a certain aim, and would have excelled his competitors in the race,
+could he have broken the ties that bound him to Nouronihar.
+
+The two brothers had mutually engaged their children to each other; and
+Nouronihar loved her cousin more than her eyes.  Both had the same tastes
+and amusements; the same long languishing looks; the same tresses; the
+same fair complexions; and when Gulchenrouz appeared in the dress of his
+cousin, he seemed to be more feminine than even herself.  If at any time
+he left the harem to visit Fakreddin, it was with all the bashfulness of
+a fawn that consciously ventures from the lair of its dam; he was however
+wanton enough to mock the solemn old grey-beards to whom he was subject,
+though sure to be rated without mercy in return.  Whenever this happened,
+he would plunge into the recesses of the harem, and sobbing take refuge
+in the arms of Nouronihar, who loved even his faults beyond the virtues
+of others.
+
+It fell out this evening that after leaving the Caliph in the meadow, she
+ran with Gulchenrouz over the green sward of the mountain that sheltered
+the vale, where Fakreddin had chosen to reside.  The sun was dilated on
+the edge of the horizon; and the young people, whose fancies were lively
+and inventive, imagined they beheld in the gorgeous clouds of the west
+the domes of Shadukiam and Ambreabad, where the Peries have fixed their
+abode.  Nouronihar, sitting on the slope of the hill, supported on her
+knees the perfumed head of Gulchenrouz.  The air was calm, and no sound
+stirred but the voices of other young girls who were drawing cool water
+from the streams below.  The unexpected arrival of the Caliph, and the
+splendour that marked his appearance, had already filled with emotion the
+ardent soul of Nouronihar.  Her vanity irresistibly prompted her to pique
+the prince’s attention, and this she before took good care to effect
+whilst he picked up the jasamine she had thrown upon him.  But when
+Gulchenrouz asked after the flowers he had culled for her bosom,
+Nouronihar was all in confusion.  She hastily kissed his forehead, arose
+in a flutter, and walked with unequal steps on the border of the
+precipice.  Night advanced, and the pure gold of the setting sun had
+yielded to a sanguine red, the glow of which, like the reflection of a
+burning furnace, flushed Nouronihar’s animated countenance.  Gulchenrouz
+alarmed at the agitation of his cousin, said to her with a supplicating
+accent:
+
+“Let us be gone; the sky looks portentious: the tamarisks tremble more
+than common; and the raw wind chills my very heart.  Come, let us be
+gone, ’tis a melancholy night.”
+
+Then taking hold of her hand he drew it towards the path he besought her
+to go.  Nouronihar unconsciously followed the attraction, for a thousand
+strange imaginations occupied her spirit.  She passed the large round of
+honeysuckles, her favourite resort, without ever vouchsafing it a glance,
+yet Gulchenrouz could not help snatching off a few shoots in his way,
+though he ran as if a wild beast were behind.
+
+The young females seeing him approach in such haste, and according to
+custom expecting a dance, instantly assembled in a circle and took each
+other by the hand, but Gulchenrouz coming up out of breath, fell down at
+once on the grass.  This accident struck with consternation the whole of
+this frolicsome party, whilst Nouronihar, half distracted, and overcome
+both by the violence of her exercise and the tumult of her thoughts, sunk
+feebly down at his side, cherished his cold hands in her bosom, and
+chafed his temples with a fragrant unguent.  At length he came to
+himself, and wrapping up his head in the robe of his cousin, entreated
+that she would not return to the harem.  He was afraid of being snapped
+at by Shaban his tutor, a wrinkled old eunuch of a surly disposition, for
+having interrupted the stated walk of Nouronihar, he dreaded lest the
+churl should take it amiss.  The whole of this sprightly group, sitting
+round upon a mossy knole, began to entertain themselves with various
+pastimes, whilst their superintendents the eunuchs were gravely
+conversing at a distance.  The nurse of the emir’s daughter observing her
+pupil sit ruminating with her eyes on the ground, endeavoured to amuse
+her with diverting tales, to which Gulchenrouz, who had already forgotten
+his inquietudes, listened with a breathless attention.  He laughed; he
+clapped his hands; and passed a hundred little tricks on the whole of the
+company, without omitting the eunuchs, whom he provoked to run after him,
+in spite of their age and decrepitude.
+
+During these occurrences the moon arose, the wind subsided, and the
+evening became so serene and inviting that a resolution was taken to sup
+on the spot.  Sutlememe, who excelled in dressing a salad, having filled
+large bowls of porcelain with eggs of small birds, curds turned with
+citron juice, slices of cucumber, and the inmost leaves of delicate
+herbs, handed it round from one to another, and gave each their shares in
+a large spoon of cocknos.  Gulchenrouz nestling as usual in the bosom of
+Nouronihar, pouted out his vermillion little lips against the offer of
+Sutlememe, and would take it only from the hand of his cousin, on whose
+mouth he hung like a bee inebriated with the quintessence of flowers.
+One of the eunuchs ran to fetch melons, whilst others were employed in
+showering down almonds from the branches that overhung this amiable
+party.
+
+In the midst of this festive scene there appeared a light on the top of
+the highest mountain, which attracted the notice of every eye.  This
+light was not less bright than the moon when at full, and might have been
+taken for her had it not been that the moon was already risen.  The
+phenomenon occasioned a general surprise, and no one could conjecture the
+cause.  It could not be a fire, for the light was clear and bluish; nor
+had meteors ever been seen of that magnitude or splendour.  This strange
+light faded for a moment, and immediately renewed its brightness.  It
+first appeared motionless at the foot of the rock, whence it darted in an
+instant to sparkle in a thicket of palm trees, from thence it glided
+along the torrent, and at last fixed in a glen that was narrow and dark.
+The moment it had taken its direction, Gulchenrouz, whose heart always
+trembled at any thing sudden or rare, drew Nouronihar by the robe, and
+anxiously requested her to return to the harem.  The women were
+importunate in seconding the entreaty, but the curiosity of the emir’s
+daughter prevailed.  She not only refused to go back, but resolved at all
+hazards to pursue the appearance.  Whilst they were debating what was
+best to be done, the light shot forth so dazzling a blaze that they all
+fled away shrieking.  Nouronihar followed them a few steps, but coming to
+the turn of a little bye path stopped, and went back alone.  As she ran
+with an alertness peculiar to herself, it was not long before she came to
+the place where they had just been supping.  The globe of fire now
+appeared stationary in the glen, and burned in majestic stillness.
+Nouronihar compressing her hands upon her bosom, hesitated for some
+moments to advance.  The solitude of her situation was new; the silence
+of the night awful; and every object inspired sensations which till then
+she never had felt.  The affright of Gulchenrouz recurred to her mind;
+and she a thousand times turned to go back, but this luminous appearance
+was always before her.  Urged on by an irresistible impulse, she
+continued to approach it in defiance of every obstacle that opposed her
+progress.
+
+At length she arrived at the opening of the glen, but instead of coming
+up to the light, she found herself surrounded by darkness, except that at
+a considerable distance a faint spark glimmered by fits.  She stopped a
+second time: the sound of waterfalls mingling their murmurs, the hollow
+rustlings amongst the palm branches, and the funereal screams of the
+birds from their rifted trunks, all conspired to fill her with terror.
+She imagined every moment that she trod on some venomous reptile.  All
+the stories of malignant Dives, and dismal Goules thronged into her
+memory, but her curiosity was notwithstanding more predominant than her
+fears.  She therefore firmly entered a winding track that led towards the
+spark, but being a stranger to the path, she had not gone far till she
+began to repent of her rashness.
+
+“Alas!” said she, “that I were but in those secure and illuminated
+apartments where my evenings glided on with Gulchenrouz!  Dear child, how
+would thy heart flutter with terror wert thou wandering in these wild
+solitudes like me.”
+
+At the close of this apostrophe she regained her road, and coming to
+steps hewn out in the rock ascended them undismayed.  The light, which
+was now gradually enlarging, appeared above her on the summit of the
+mountain.  At length she distinguished a plaintive and melodious union of
+voices proceeding from a sort of cavern, that resembled the dirges which
+are sung over tombs.  A sound likewise like that which arises from the
+filling of baths, at the same time struck her ear.  She continued
+ascending, and discovered large wax torches in full blaze planted here
+and there in the fissures of the rock.  This preparation filled her with
+fear, whilst the subtle and potent odour which the torches exhaled caused
+her to sink almost lifeless at the entrance of the grot.
+
+Casting her eyes within in this kind of trance, she beheld a large
+cistern of gold filled with a water, whose vapour distilled on her face a
+dew of the essence of roses.  A soft symphony resounded through the grot.
+On the sides of the cistern she noticed appendages of royalty; diadems
+and feathers of the heron, all sparkling with carbuncles.  Whilst her
+attention was fixed on this display of magnificence, the music ceased,
+and a voice instantly demanded:
+
+“For what monarch were these torches kindled, this bath prepared, and
+these habiliments? which belong not only to the sovereigns of the earth,
+but even to the talismanic powers!”
+
+To which a second voice answered:
+
+“They are for the charming daughter of the emir Fakreddin.”
+
+“What,” replied the first, “for that trifler who consumes her time with a
+giddy child, immersed in softness, and who at best can make but an
+enervated husband?”
+
+“And can she,” rejoined the other voice, “be amused with such empty
+trifles, whilst the Caliph, the sovereign of the world, he who is
+destined to enjoy the treasures of the preadimite sultans, a prince six
+feet high, and whose eyes pervade the inmost soul of a female, is
+inflamed with the love of her? no, she will be wise enough to answer that
+passion alone that can aggrandize her glory.  No doubt she will, and
+despise the puppet of her fancy; then all the riches this place contains,
+as well as the carbuncle of Giamschid shall be hers.”
+
+“You judge right,” returned the first voice, “and I haste to Istakar to
+prepare the palace of subterranean fire for the reception of the bridal
+pair.”
+
+The voices ceased, the torches were extinguished, the most entire
+darkness succeeded, and Nouronihar recovering with a start, found herself
+reclined on a sofa in the harem of her father.  She clapped her hands,
+and immediately came together Gulchenrouz and her women, who, in despair
+at having lost her, had despatched eunuchs to seek her in every
+direction.  Shaban appeared with the rest, and began to reprimand her
+with an air of consequence:
+
+“Little impertinent,” said he, “whence got you false keys? or are you
+beloved of some genius that hath given you a picklock?  I will try the
+extent of your power; come, to your chamber! through the two sky-lights,
+and expect not the company of Gulchenrouz.  Be expeditious!  I will shut
+you up in the double tower.”
+
+At these menaces Nouronihar indignantly raised her head, opened on Shaban
+her black eyes, which since the important dialogue of the enchanted grot
+were considerably enlarged, and said:
+
+“Go, speak thus to slaves! but learn to reverence her who is born to give
+laws, and subject all to her power.”
+
+She was proceeding in the same style, but was interrupted by a sudden
+exclamation of,
+
+“The Caliph! the Caliph!”
+
+The curtains at once were thrown open, and the slaves prostrate in double
+rows, whilst poor little Gulchenrouz hid himself beneath the elevation of
+a sofa.  At first appeared a file of black eunuchs trailing after them
+long trains of muslin embroidered with gold, and holding in their hands
+censers, which dispensed as they passed the grateful perfume of the wood
+of aloes.  Next marched Bababalouk with a solemn strut, and tossing his
+head as not over pleased at the visit.  Vathek came close after superbly
+robed; his gait was unembarrassed and noble, and his presence would have
+engaged admiration, though he had not been the sovereign of the world.
+He approached Nouronihar with a throbbing heart, and seemed enraptured at
+the full effulgence of her radiant eyes, of which he had before caught
+but a few glimpses; but she instantly depressed them, and her confusion
+augmented her beauty.
+
+Bababalouk, who was a thorough adept in coincidences of this nature, and
+knew that the worst game should be played with the best face, immediately
+made a signal for all to retire, and no sooner did he perceive beneath
+the sofa the little one’s feet, than he drew him forth without ceremony,
+set him upon his shoulders, and lavished on him as he went off a thousand
+odious caresses.  Gulchenrouz cried out, and resisted till his cheeks
+became the colour of the blossom of the pomegranite, and the tears that
+started into his eyes shot forth a gleam of indignation.  He cast a
+significant glance at Nouronihar, which the Caliph noticing, asked:
+
+“Is that then your Gulchenrouz?”
+
+“Sovereign of the world,” answered she, “spare my cousin, whose innocence
+and gentleness deserve not your anger!”
+
+“Take comfort,” said Vathek with a smile, “he is in good hands.
+Bababalouk is fond of children, and never goes without sweetmeats and
+comfits.”
+
+The daughter of Fakreddin was abashed; and suffered Gulchenrouz to be
+borne away without adding a word.  The tumult of her bosom betrayed her
+confusion; and Vathek becoming still more impassioned, gave a loose to
+his frenzy, which had only not subdued the last faint strugglings of
+reluctance, when the emir suddenly bursting in, threw his face upon the
+ground at the feet of the Caliph, and said:
+
+“Commander of the faithful, abase not yourself to the meanness of your
+slave.”
+
+“No, emir,” replied Vathek, “I raise her to an equality with myself; I
+declare her my wife; and the glory of your race shall extend from one
+generation to another.”
+
+“Alas! my lord,” said Fakreddin, as he plucked off the honours of his
+beard, “cut short the days of your faithful servant rather than force him
+to depart from his word.  Nouronihar, as her hands evince, is solemnly
+promised to Gulchenrouz, the son of my bother, Ali Hassan; they are
+united also in heart; their faith is mutually plighted; and affiances so
+sacred cannot be broken.”
+
+“What, then,” replied the Caliph bluntly, “would you surrender this
+divine beauty to a husband more womanish than herself?  And can you
+imagine that I will suffer her charms to decay in hands so inefficient
+and nerveless?  No! she is destined to live out her life within my
+embraces: such is my will: retire, and disturb not the night I devote to
+the homage of her charms.”
+
+The irritated emir drew forth his sabre, presented it to Vathek, and
+stretching out his neck, said in a firm tone of voice:
+
+“Strike your unhappy host my lord! he has lived long enough, since he
+hath seen the prophet’s vicegerent violate the rights of hospitality.”
+
+At his uttering these words, Nouronihar unable to support any longer the
+conflict of her passions, sunk down in a swoon.  Vathek, both terrified
+for her life, and furious at an opposition to his will, bade Fakreddin
+assist his daughter, and withdrew, darting his terrible look at the
+unfortunate emir, who suddenly fell backward bathed in a sweat, cold as
+the damp of death.
+
+Gulchenrouz, who had escaped from the hands of Bababalouk, and was that
+instant returned, called out for help as loudly as he could, not having
+strength to afford it himself.  Pale and panting, the poor child
+attempted to revive Nouronihar by caresses, and it happened that the
+thrilling warmth of his lips restored her to life.  Fakreddin beginning
+also to recover from the look of the Caliph, with difficulty tottered to
+a seat, and after warily casting round his eye to see if this dangerous
+prince were gone, sent for Shaban and Sutlememe, and said to them apart—
+
+“My friends, violent evils require as violent remedies; the Caliph has
+brought desolation and horror into my family, and how shall we resist his
+power?  Another of his looks will send me to my grave.  Fetch then that
+narcotic powder which the Dervise brought me from Aracan.  A dose of it,
+the effect of which will continue three days, must be administered to
+each of these children.  The Caliph will believe them to be dead, for
+they will have all the appearance of death.  We shall go as if to inter
+them in the cave of Meimoune, at the entrance of the great desert of
+sand, and near the cabin of my dwarfs.  When all the spectators shall be
+withdrawn, you, Shaban, and four select eunuchs shall convey them to the
+lake, where provision shall be ready to support them a month; for, one
+day allotted to the surprise this event will occasion, five to the tears,
+a fortnight to reflection, and the rest to prepare for renewing his
+progress, will, according to my calculation, fill up the whole time that
+Vathek will tarry, and I shall then be freed from his intrusion.”
+
+“Your plan,” said Sutlememe, “is a good one, if it can but be effected.
+I have remarked that Nouronihar is well able to support the glances of
+the Caliph, and that he is far from being sparing of them to her; be
+assured therefore, notwithstanding her fondness for Gulchenrouz, she will
+never remain quiet while she knows him to be here, unless we can persuade
+her that both herself and Gulchenrouz are really dead, and that they were
+conveyed to those rocks for a limited season to expiate the little faults
+of which their love was the cause.  We will add that we killed ourselves
+in despair, and that your dwarfs whom they never yet saw will preach to
+them delectable sermons.  I will engage that every thing shall succeed to
+the bent of your wishes.”
+
+“Be it so,” said Fakreddin; “I approve your proposal; let us lose not a
+moment to give it effect.”  They forthwith hastened to seek for the
+powder, which being mixed in a sherbet was immediately drunk by
+Gulchenrouz and Nouronihar.  Within the space of an hour both were seized
+with violent palpitations, and a general numbness gradually ensued.  They
+arose from the floor, where they had remained ever since the Caliph’s
+departure, and ascending to the sofa, reclined themselves at full length
+upon it, clasped in each other’s embraces.
+
+“Cherish me, my dear Nouronihar,” said Gulchenrouz; “put thy hand upon my
+heart, for it feels as if it were frozen.  Alas! thou art as cold as
+myself! hath the Caliph murdered us both with his terrible look?”
+
+“I am dying,” cried she in a faltering voice; “press me closer, I am
+ready to expire!”
+
+“Let us die then together,” answered the little Gulchenrouz, whilst his
+breast laboured with a convulsive sigh; “let me at least breathe forth my
+soul on thy lips.”
+
+They spoke no more, and became as dead.
+
+Immediately the most piercing cries were heard through the harem, whilst
+Shaban and Sutlememe personated with great adroitness the parts of
+persons in despair.  The emir, who was sufficiently mortified to be
+forced into such untoward expedients, and had now for the first time made
+a trial of his powder, was under no necessity of counterfeiting grief.
+The slaves, who had flocked together from all quarters, stood motionless
+at the spectacle before them.  All lights were extinguished save two
+lamps, which shed a wan glimmering over the faces of these lovely
+flowers, that seemed to be faded in the spring-time of life.  Funeral
+vestments were prepared; their bodies were washed with rose water; their
+beautiful tresses were braided and incensed; and they were wrapped in
+symars whiter than alabaster.  At the moment that their attendants were
+placing two wreaths of their favourite jasamines on their brows, the
+Caliph, who had just heard the tragical catastrophe, arrived.  He looked
+not less pale and haggard than the goules that wander at night among
+graves.  Forgetful of himself and every one else, he broke through the
+midst of the slaves, fell prostrate at the foot of the sofa, beat his
+bosom, called himself “atrocious murderer,” and invoked upon his head a
+thousand imprecations.  With a trembling hand he raised the veil that
+covered the countenance of Nouronihar, and uttering a loud shriek fell
+lifeless on the floor.  The chief of the eunuchs dragged him off with
+horrible grimaces, and repeated as he went:
+
+“Aye, I foresaw she would play you some ungracious turn.”
+
+No sooner was the Caliph gone than the emir commanded biers to be
+brought, and forbade that any one should enter the harem.  Every window
+was fastened; all instruments of music were broken; and the Imams began
+to recite their prayers.  Towards the close of this melancholy day Vathek
+sobbed in silence, for they had been forced to compose with anodynes his
+convulsions of rage and desperation.
+
+At the dawn of the succeeding morning the wide folding doors of the
+palace were set open, and the funeral procession moved forward for the
+mountain.  The wailful cries of “La Ilah illa Alla,” reached to the
+Caliph, who was eager to cicatrize himself and attend the ceremonial; nor
+could he have been dissuaded, had not his excessive weakness disabled him
+from walking.  At the few first steps he fell on the ground, and his
+people were obliged to lay him on a bed, where he remained many days in
+such a state of insensibility as excited compassion in the emir himself.
+
+When the procession was arrived at the grot of Meimoune, Shaban and
+Sutlememe dismissed the whole of the train excepting the four
+confidential eunuchs who were appointed to remain.  After resting some
+moments near the biers which had been left in the open air, they caused
+them to be carried to the brink of a small lake whose banks were
+overgrown with a hoary moss.  This was the great resort of herons and
+storks, which preyed continually on little blue fishes.  The dwarfs,
+instructed by the emir, soon repaired thither, and with the help of the
+eunuchs began to construct cabins of rushes and reeds, a work in which
+they had admirable skill.  A magazine also was contrived for provisions,
+with a small oratory for themselves, and a pyramid of wood neatly piled,
+to furnish the necessary fuel, for the air was bleak in the hollows of
+the mountains.
+
+At evening two fires were kindled on the brink of the lake, and the two
+lovely bodies taken from their biers were carefully deposited upon a bed
+of dried leaves within the same cabin.  The dwarfs began to recite the
+koran with their clear shrill voices, and Shaban and Sutlememe stood at
+some distance anxiously waiting the effects of the powder.  At length
+Nouronihar and Gulchenrouz faintly stretched out their arms, and
+gradually opening their eyes began to survey with looks of increasing
+amazement every object around them.  They even attempted to rise, but for
+want of strength fell back again.  Sutlememe on this administered a
+cordial which the emir had taken care to provide.
+
+Gulchenrouz thoroughly aroused sneezed out aloud, and raising himself
+with an effort that expressed his surprise, left the cabin, and inhaled
+the fresh air with the greatest avidity.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “I breathe again! again do I exist!  I hear sounds!  I
+behold a firmament spangled over with stars!”
+
+Nouronihar catching these beloved accents extricated herself from the
+leaves, and ran to clasp Gulchenrouz to her bosom.  The first objects she
+remarked were their long symars, their garlands of flowers, and their
+naked feet: she hid her face in her hands to reflect.  The vision of the
+enchanted bath, the despair of her father, and more vividly than both,
+the majestic figure of Vathek recurred to her memory.  She recollected
+also, that herself and Gulchenrouz had been sick and dying; but all these
+images bewildered her mind.  Not knowing where she was, she turned her
+eyes on all sides, as if to recognise the surrounding scene.  This
+singular lake, those flames reflected from its glassy surface, the pale
+hues of its banks, the romantic cabins, the bull-rushes that sadly waved
+their drooping heads, the storks whose melancholy cries blended with the
+shrill voices of the dwarfs, every thing conspired to persuade them that
+the angel of death had opened the portal of some other world.
+
+Gulchenrouz on his part, lost in wonder, clung to the neck of his cousin.
+He believed himself in the region of phantoms, and was terrified at the
+silence she preserved.  At length addressing her:
+
+“Speak,” said he; “where are we! do you not see those spectres that are
+stirring the burning coals?  Are they the Monker and Nakir, come to throw
+us into them?  Does the fatal bridge cross this lake, whose solemn
+stillness perhaps conceals from us an abyss, in which for whole ages we
+shall be doomed incessantly to sink?”
+
+“No my children,” said Sutlememe going towards them; “take comfort, the
+exterminating angel who conducted our souls hither after yours, hath
+assured us that the chastisement of your indolent and voluptuous life
+shall be restricted to a certain series of years, which you must pass in
+this dreary abode, where the sun is scarcely visible, and where the soil
+yields neither fruits nor flowers.  These,” continued she, pointing to
+the dwarfs, “will provide for our wants; for souls so mundane as ours
+retain too strong a tincture of their earthly extraction.  Instead of
+meats, your food will be nothing but rice, and your bread shall be
+moistened in the fogs that brood over the surface of the lake.”
+
+At this desolating prospect the poor children burst into tears, and
+prostrated themselves before the dwarfs, who perfectly supported their
+characters, and delivered an excellent discourse of a customary length
+upon the sacred camel, which after a thousand years was to convey them to
+the paradise of the faithful.
+
+The sermon being ended and ablutions performed, they praised Alla and the
+prophet, supped very indifferently, and retired to their withered leaves.
+Nouronihar and her little cousin consoled themselves on finding that,
+though dead, they yet lay in one cabin.  Having slept well before, the
+remainder of the night was spent in conversation on what had befallen
+them; and both, from a dread of apparitions, betook themselves for
+protection to one another’s arms.
+
+In the morning, which was lowering and rainy, the dwarfs mounted high
+poles like minarets, and called them to prayers.  The whole congregation,
+which consisted of Sutlememe, Shaban, the four eunuchs, and some storks,
+were already assembled.  The two children came forth from their cabin
+with a slow and dejected pace.  As their minds were in a tender and
+melancholy mood, their devotions were performed with fervour.  No sooner
+were they finished than Gulchenrouz demanded of Sutlememe and the rest,
+“how they happened to die so opportunely for his cousin and himself.”
+
+“We killed ourselves,” returned Sutlememe, “in despair at your death.”
+
+On this, said Nouronihar, who notwithstanding what was past, had not yet
+forgotten her vision:
+
+“And the Caliph, is he also dead of his grief? and will he likewise come
+hither?”
+
+The dwarfs, who were prepared with an answer, most demurely replied:
+
+“Vathek is damned beyond all redemption!”
+
+“I readily believe so,” said Gulchenrouz; “and am glad from my heart to
+hear it, for I am convinced it was his horrible look that sent us hither,
+to listen to sermons and mess upon rice.”
+
+One week passed away on the side of the lake unmarked by any variety;
+Nouronihar ruminating on the grandeur of which death had deprived her,
+and Gulchenrouz applying to prayers and to panniers along with the
+dwarfs, who infinitely pleased him.  Whilst this scene of innocence was
+exhibiting in the mountains, the Caliph presented himself to the emir in
+a new light.  The instant he recovered the use of his senses, with a
+voice that made Bababalouk quake, he thundered out:
+
+“Perfidious Giaour! I renounce thee for ever! it is thou who hast slain
+my beloved Nouronihar! and I supplicate the pardon of Mahomet, who would
+have preserved her to me had I been more wise.  Let water be brought to
+perform my ablutions, and let the pious Fakreddin be called to offer up
+his prayers with mine, and reconcile me to him.  Afterwards we will go
+together and visit the sepulchre of the unfortunate Nouronihar.  I am
+resolved to become a hermit, and consume the residue of my days on this
+mountain, in hope of expiating my crimes.”
+
+Nouronihar was not altogether so content, for though she felt a fondness
+for Gulchenrouz, who to augment the attachment, had been left at full
+liberty with her, yet she still regarded him as but a bauble that bore no
+competition with the carbuncle of Giamschid.  At times she indulged
+doubts on the mode of her being, and scarcely could believe that the dead
+had all the wants and the whims of the living.  To gain satisfaction,
+however, on so perplexing a topic, she arose one morning whilst all were
+asleep with a breathless caution from the side of Gulchenrouz, and after
+having given him a soft kiss, began to follow the windings of the lake
+till it terminated with a rock whose top was accessible though lofty.
+This she clambered up with considerable toil, and having reached the
+summit, set forward in a run like a doe that unwittingly follows her
+hunter.  Though she skipped along with the alertness of an antelope, yet
+at intervals she was forced to desist, and rest beneath the tamarisks to
+recover her breath.  Whilst she, thus reclined, was occupied with her
+little reflections on the apprehension that she had some knowledge of the
+place, Vathek, who finding himself that morning but ill at ease, had gone
+forth before the dawn, presented himself on a sudden to her view.
+Motionless with surprise, he durst not approach the figure before him,
+which lay shrouded up in a symar extended on the ground, trembling and
+pale, but yet lovely to behold.  At length Nouronihar, with a mixture of
+pleasure and affliction, raising her fine eyes to him, said:
+
+“My lord, are you come hither to eat rice and hear sermons with me?”
+
+“Beloved phantom!” cried Vathek, “dost thou speak? hast thou the same
+graceful form? the same radiant features? art thou palpable likewise?”
+and eagerly embracing her he added, “here are limbs and a bosom animated
+with a gentle warmth! what can such a prodigy mean?”
+
+Nouronihar with diffidence answered:
+
+“You know my lord that I died on the night you honoured me with your
+visit; my cousin maintains it was from one of your glances, but I cannot
+believe him, for to me they seem not so dreadful.  Gulchenrouz died with
+me, and we were both brought into a region of desolation, where we are
+fed with a wretched diet.  If you be dead also, and are come hither to
+join us, I pity your lot, for you will be stunned with the clang of the
+dwarfs and the storks.  Besides, it is mortifying in the extreme that you
+as well as myself should have lost the treasures of the subterranean
+palace.”
+
+At the mention of the subterranean palace, the Caliph suspended his
+caresses, which indeed had proceeded pretty far, to seek from Nouronihar
+an explanation of her meaning.  She then recapitulated her vision—what
+immediately followed—and the history of her pretended death; adding also
+a description of the palace of expiation from whence she had fled; and
+all in a manner that would have extorted his laughter, had not the
+thoughts of Vathek been too deeply engaged.  No sooner, however, had she
+ended, than he again clasped her to his bosom, and said:
+
+“Light of my eyes! the mystery is unravelled; we both are alive!  Your
+father is a cheat, who for the sake of dividing hath deluded us both; and
+the Giaour, whose design, as far as I can discover, is that we shall
+proceed together, seems scarce a whit better.  It shall be some time at
+least before he find us in his palace of fire.  Your lovely little person
+in my estimation is far more precious than all the treasures of the
+preadimite sultans, and I wish to possess it at pleasure, and in open day
+for many a moon, before I go to burrow under ground like a mole.”
+
+“Forget this little trifler Gulchenrouz, and”—
+
+“Ah, my lord,” interposed Nouronihar, “let me entreat that you do him no
+evil.”
+
+“No, no,” replied Vathek, “I have already bid you forbear to alarm
+yourself for him.  He has been brought up too much on milk and sugar to
+stimulate my jealousy.  We will leave him with the dwarfs, who by the bye
+are my old acquaintances; their company will suit him far better than
+yours.  As to other matters, I will return no more to your father’s.  I
+want not to have my ears dinned by him and his dotards with the violation
+of the rights of hospitality; as if it were less an honour for you to
+espouse the sovereign of the world, than a girl dressed up like a boy.”
+
+Nouronihar could find nothing to oppose in a discourse so eloquent.  She
+only wished the amorous monarch had discovered more ardour for the
+carbuncle of Giamschid; but flattered herself it would gradually
+increase, and therefore yielded to his will with the most bewitching
+submission.
+
+When the Caliph judged it proper he called for Bababalouk, who was asleep
+in the cave of Meimoune, and dreaming that the phantom of Nouronihar
+having mounted him once more on her swing, had just given him such a jerk
+that he one moment soared above the mountains, and the next sunk into the
+abyss.  Starting from his sleep at the voice of his master, he ran
+gasping for breath, and had nearly fallen backward at the sight, as he
+believed, of the spectre, by whom he had so lately been haunted in his
+dream.
+
+“Ah my lord,” cried he, recoiling ten steps, and covering his eyes with
+both hands, “do you then perform the office of a goule?  ’Tis true you
+have dug up the dead, yet hope not to make her your prey; for after all
+she hath caused me to suffer, she is even wicked enough to prey upon
+you.”
+
+“Cease thy folly,” said Vathek, “and thou shalt soon be convinced that it
+is Nouronihar herself, alive and well, whom I clasp to my breast.  Go
+only, and pitch my tents in the neighbouring valley.  There will I fix my
+abode with this beautiful tulip, whose colours I soon shall restore.
+There exert thy best endeavours to procure whatever can augment the
+enjoyments of life, till I shall disclose to thee more of my will.”
+
+The news of so unlucky an event soon reached the ears of the emir, who
+abandoned himself to grief and despair, and began, as did all his old
+greybeards, to begrime his visage with ashes.  A total supineness ensued;
+travellers were no longer entertained, no more plasters were spread, and
+instead of the charitable activity that had distinguished this asylum,
+the whole of its inhabitants exhibited only faces of a half cubit long,
+and uttered groans that accorded with their forlorn situation.
+
+Though Fakreddin bewailed his daughter as lost to him for ever, yet
+Gulchenrouz was not forgotten.  He despatched immediate instruction to
+Sutlememe, Shaban, and the dwarfs, enjoining them not to undeceive the
+child in respect to his state, but under some pretence to convey him far
+from the lofty rock at the extremity of the lake, to a place which he
+should appoint, as safer from danger; for he suspected that Vathek
+intended him evil.
+
+Gulchenrouz in the mean while was filled with amazement at not finding
+his cousin; nor were the dwarfs at all less surprised; but Sutlememe, who
+had more penetration, immediately guessed what had happened.  Gulchenrouz
+was amused with the delusive hope of once more embracing Nouronihar in
+the interior recesses of the mountains, where the ground, strewed over
+with orange blossoms and jasamines, offered beds much more inviting than
+the withered leaves in their cabin, where they might accompany with their
+voices the sounds of their lutes, and chase butterflies in concert.
+Sutlememe was far gone in this sort of description when one of the four
+eunuchs beckoned her aside to apprise her of the arrival of a messenger
+from their fraternity, who had explained the secret of the flight of
+Nouronihar, and brought the commands of the emir.  A council with Shaban
+and the dwarfs was immediately held.  Their baggage being stowed in
+consequence of it, they embarked in a shallop and quietly sailed with the
+little one, who acquiesced in all their proposals.  Their voyage
+proceeded in the same manner, till they came to the place where the lake
+sinks beneath the hollow of the rock, but as soon as the bark had entered
+it, and Gulchenrouz found himself surrounded with darkness, he was seized
+with a dreadful consternation, and incessantly uttered the most piercing
+outcries; for he now was persuaded he should actually be damned for
+having taken too many little freedoms in his life-time with his cousin.
+
+But let us return to the Caliph, and her who ruled over his heart.
+Bababalouk had pitched the tents, and closed up the extremities of the
+valley with magnificent screens of India cloth, which were guarded by
+Ethiopian slaves with their drawn sabres.  To preserve the verdure of
+this beautiful enclosure in its natural freshness, the white eunuchs went
+continually round it with their red water vessels.  The waving of fans
+was heard near the imperial pavilion, where by the voluptuous light that
+glowed through the muslins, the Caliph enjoyed at full view all the
+attractions of Nouronihar.  Inebriated with delight, he was all ear to
+her charming voice which accompanied the lute; while she was not less
+captivated with his descriptions of Samarah and the tower full of
+wonders, but especially with his relation of the adventure of the ball,
+and the chasm of the Giaour with its ebony portal.
+
+In this manner they conversed for a day and a night; they bathed together
+in a basin of black marble, which admirably relieved the fairness of
+Nouronihar.  Bababalouk, whose good graces this beauty had regained,
+spared no attention that their repasts might be served up with the
+minutest exactness: some exquisite rariety was ever placed before them;
+and he sent even to Schiraz for that fragrant and delicious wine which
+had been hoarded up in bottles prior to the birth of Mahomet.  He had
+excavated little ovens in the rock to bake the nice manchets which were
+prepared by the hands of Nouronihar, from whence they had derived a
+flavour so grateful to Vathek, that he regarded the ragouts of his other
+wives as entirely maukish; whilst they would have died at the emir’s of
+chagrin at finding themselves so neglected, if Fakreddin, notwithstanding
+his resentment, had not taken pity upon them.
+
+The sultana Dilara, who till then had been the favourite, took this
+dereliction of the Caliph to heart with a vehemence natural to her
+character; for during her continuance in favour she had imbibed from
+Vathek many of his extravagant fancies, and was fired with impatience to
+behold the superb tombs of Istakar, and the palace of forty columns;
+besides, having been brought up amongst the magi, she had fondly
+cherished the idea of the Caliph’s devoting himself to the worship of
+fire; thus his voluptuous and desultory life with her rival was to her a
+double source of affliction.  The transient piety of Vathek had
+occasioned her some serious alarms, but the present was an evil of far
+greater magnitude.  She resolved therefore without hesitation to write to
+Carathis, and acquaint her that all things went ill; that they had eaten,
+slept, and revelled at an old emir’s, whose sanctity was very formidable,
+and that after all the prospect of possessing the treasures of the
+preadimite sultans was no less remote than before.  This letter was
+entrusted to the care of two woodmen who were at work on one of the great
+forests of the mountains, and being acquainted with the shortest cuts,
+arrived in ten days at Samarah.
+
+The princess Carathis was engaged at chess with Morakanabad, when the
+arrival of these wood-fellers was announced.  She, after some weeks of
+Vathek’s absence, had forsaken the upper regions of her tower, because
+everything appeared in confusion among the stars, whom she consulted
+relative to the fate of her son.  In vain did she renew her fumigations,
+and extend herself on the roof to obtain mystic visions, nothing more
+could she see in her dreams than pieces of brocade, nosegays of flowers,
+and other unmeaning gewgaws.  These disappointments had thrown her into a
+state of dejection which no drug in her power was sufficient to remove.
+Her only resource was in Morakanabad, who was a good man, and endowed
+with a decent share of confidence, yet whilst in her company he never
+thought himself on roses.
+
+No person knew aught of Vathek, and a thousand ridiculous stories were
+propagated at his expense.  The eagerness of Carathis may be easily
+guessed at receiving the letter, as well as her rage at reading the
+dissolute conduct of her son.
+
+“Is it so,” said she; “either I will perish, or Vathek shall enter the
+palace of fire.  Let me expire in flames, provided he may reign on the
+throne of Soliman!”
+
+Having said this, and whirled herself round in a magical manner, which
+struck Morakanabad with such terror as caused him to recoil, she ordered
+her great camel Alboufaki to be brought, and the hideous Nerkes with the
+unrelenting Cafour to attend.
+
+“I require no other retinue,” said she to Morakanabad: “I am going on
+affairs of emergency, a truce therefore to parade!  Take you care of the
+people, fleece them well in my absence, for we shall expend large sums,
+and one knows not what may betide.”
+
+The night was uncommonly dark, and a pestilential blast ravaged the plain
+of Catoul that would have deterred any other traveller however urgent the
+call; but Carathis enjoyed most whatever filled others with dread.
+Nerkes concurred in opinion with her, and Cafour had a particular
+predilection for a pestilence.  In the morning this accomplished caravan,
+with the wood-fellers who directed their route, halted on the edge of an
+extensive marsh, from whence so noxious a vapour arose as would have
+destroyed any animal but Alboufaki, who naturally inhaled these malignant
+fogs.  The peasants entreated their convoy not to sleep in this place.
+
+“To sleep,” cried Carathis, “what an excellent thought!  I never sleep
+but for visions; and as to my attendants, their occupations are too many
+to close the only eye they each have.”
+
+The poor peasants, who were not over pleased with their party, remained
+open-mouthed with surprise.
+
+Carathis alighted as well as her negresses, and severally stripping off
+their outer garments, they all ran in their drawers to cull from those
+spots where the sun shone fiercest, the venomous plants that grew on the
+marsh.  This provision was made for the family of the emir, and whoever
+might retard the expedition to Istakar.  The woodmen were overcome with
+fear when they beheld these three horrible phantoms run, and not much
+relishing the company of Alboufaki, stood aghast at the command of
+Carathis to set forward, notwithstanding it was noon, and the heat fierce
+enough to calcine even rocks.  In spite, however, of every remonstrance,
+they were forced implicitly to submit.
+
+Alboufaki, who delighted in solitude, constantly snorted whenever he
+perceived himself near a habitation, and Carathis, who was apt to spoil
+him with indulgence, as constantly turned him aside; so that the peasants
+were precluded from procuring subsistence; for the milch goats and ewes
+which Providence had sent towards the district they traversed, to refresh
+travellers with their milk, all fled at the sight of the hideous animal
+and his strange riders.  As to Carathis, she needed no common aliment;
+for her invention had previously furnished her with an opiate to stay her
+stomach, some of which she imparted to her mutes.
+
+At the fall of night Alboufaki making a sudden stop, stamped with his
+foot, which to Carathis, who understood his paces, was a certain
+indication that she was near the confines of some cemetery.  The moon
+shed a bright light on the spot, which served to discover a long wall
+with a large door in it standing a-jar, and so high that Alboufaki might
+easily enter.  The miserable guides, who perceived their end approaching,
+humbly implored Carathis, as she had now so good an opportunity, to inter
+them, and immediately gave up the ghost.  Nerkes and Cafour, whose wit
+was of a style peculiar to themselves, were by no means parsimonious of
+it on the folly of these poor people, nor could any thing have been found
+more suited to their taste than the site of the burying ground, and the
+sepulchres which its precincts contained.  There were at least two
+thousand of them on the declivity of a hill; some in the form of
+pyramids, others like columns, and in short the variety of their shapes
+was endless.  Carathis was too much immersed in her sublime
+contemplations to stop at the view, charming as it appeared in her eyes.
+Pondering the advantages that might accrue from her present situation,
+she could not forbear to exclaim:
+
+“So beautiful a cemetery must be haunted by Gouls, and they want not for
+intelligence! having heedlessly suffered my guides to expire, I will
+apply for directions to them, and as an inducement, will invite them to
+regale on these fresh corpses.”
+
+After this short soliloquy, she beckoned to Nerkes and Cafour, and made
+signs with her fingers, as much as to say:
+
+“Go, knock against the sides of the tombs, and strike up your delightful
+warblings, that are so like to those of the guests whose company I wish
+to obtain.”
+
+The negresses, full of joy at the behests of their mistress, and
+promising themselves much pleasure from the society of the Gouls, went
+with an air of conquest, and began their knockings at the tombs.  As
+their strokes were repeated, a hollow noise was heard in the earth, the
+surface hove up into heaps, and the Gouls on all sides protruded their
+noses to inhale the effluvia which the carcasses of the woodmen began to
+emit.
+
+They assembled before a sarcophagus of white marble, where Carathis was
+seated between the bodies of her miserable guides.  The princess received
+her visitants with distinguished politeness, and when supper was ended,
+proceeded with them to business.  Having soon learnt from them every
+thing she wished to discover, it was her intention to set forward
+forthwith on her journey, but her negresses, who were forming tender
+connections with the Gouls, importuned her with all their fingers to
+wait, at least till the dawn.  Carathis, however, being chastity in the
+abstract, and an implacable enemy to love and repose, at once rejected
+their prayer, mounted Alboufaki, and commanded them to take their seats
+in a moment.  Four days and four nights she continued her route, without
+turning to the right hand or left; on the fifth she traversed the
+mountains and half-burnt forests, and arrived on the sixth before the
+beautiful screens which concealed from all eyes the voluptuous wanderings
+of her son.
+
+It was day-break, and the guards were snoring on their posts in careless
+security, when the rough trot of Alboufaki awoke them in consternation.
+Imagining that a group of spectres ascended from the abyss was
+approaching, they all without ceremony took to their heels.  Vathek was
+at that instant with Nouronihar in the bath, hearing tales and laughing
+at Bababalouk who related them; but no sooner did the outcry of his
+guards reach him, than he flounced from the water like a carp, and as
+soon threw himself back at the sight of Carathis, who advancing with her
+negresses upon Alboufaki, broke through the muslin awnings and veils of
+the pavilion.  At this sudden apparition Nouronihar (for she was not at
+all times free from remorse) fancied that the moment of celestial
+vengeance was come, and clung about the Caliph in amorous despondence.
+
+Carathis, still seated on her camel, foamed with indignation at the
+spectacle which obtruded itself on her chaste view.  She thundered forth
+without check or mercy:
+
+“Thou double-headed and four legged monster! what means all this winding
+and writhing? art thou not ashamed to be seen grasping this limber
+sapling, in preference to the sceptre of the preadimite sultans?  Is it
+then for this paltry doxy that thou hast violated the conditions in the
+parchment of our Giaour?  Is it on her thou hast lavished thy precious
+moments?  Is this the fruit of the knowledge I have taught thee?  Is this
+the end of thy journey?  Tear thyself from the arms of this little
+simpleton; drown her in the water before me, and instantly follow my
+guidance.”
+
+In the first ebullition of his fury, Vathek resolved to make a skeleton
+of Alboufaki, and to stuff the skins of Carathis and her blacks; but the
+ideas of the Giaour, the palace of Istakar, the sabres, and the
+talismans, flashing before his imagination with the simultaneousness of
+lightning, he became more moderate, and said to his mother in a civil but
+decisive tone:
+
+“Dread lady, you shall be obeyed; but I will not drown Nouronihar; she is
+sweeter to me than a Myrabolan comfit, and is enamoured of carbuncles,
+especially that of Giamschid, which hath also been promised to be
+conferred upon her; she therefore shall go along with us, for I intend to
+repose with her beneath the canopies of Soliman; I can sleep no more
+without her.”
+
+“Be it so,” replied Carathis alighting, and at the same time committing
+Alboufaki to the charge of her women.
+
+Nouronihar, who had not yet quitted her hold, began to take courage, and
+said with an accent of fondness to the Caliph:
+
+“Dear sovereign of my soul!  I will follow thee, if it be thy will beyond
+the Kaf, in the land of the Afrits.  I will not hesitate to climb for
+thee the nest of the Simurgh, who, this lady excepted, is the most awful
+of created existences.”
+
+“We have here then,” subjoined Carathis, “a girl both of courage and
+science.”
+
+Nouronihar had certainly both; but notwithstanding all her firmness, she
+could not help casting back a look of regret upon the graces of her
+little Gulchenrouz, and the days of tenderness she had participated with
+him.  She even dropped a few tears, which Carathis observed, and
+inadvertently breathed out with a sigh:
+
+“Alas! my gentle cousin, what will become of him!”
+
+Vathek at this apostrophe knitted up his brows, and Carathis enquired
+what it could mean.
+
+“She is preposterously sighing after a stripling with languishing eyes
+and soft hair who loves her,” said the Caliph.
+
+“Where is he?” asked Carathis.  “I must be acquainted with this pretty
+child; for,” added she, lowering her voice, “I design before I depart to
+regain the favour of the Giaour.  There is nothing so delicious in his
+estimation as the heart of a delicate boy, palpitating with the first
+tumults of love.”
+
+Vathek as he came from the bath commanded Bababalouk to collect the women
+and other moveables of his harem, embody his troops, and hold himself in
+readiness to march in three days; whilst Carathis retired alone to a
+tent, where the Giaour solaced her with encouraging visions; but at
+length waking, she found at her feet Nerkes and Cafour, who informed her
+by their signs, that having led Alboufaki to the borders of a lake, to
+browse on some moss that looked tolerably venomous, they had discovered
+certain blue fishes of the same kind with those in the reservoir on the
+top of the tower.
+
+“Ah, ah,” said she, “I will go thither to them.  These fish are past
+doubt of a species that by a small operation I can render oracular.  They
+may tell me where this little Gulchenrouz is, whom I am bent upon
+sacrificing.”
+
+Having thus spoken, she immediately set out with her swarthy retinue.
+
+It being but seldom that time is lost in the accomplishment of a wicked
+enterprise, Carathis and her negresses soon arrived at the lake, where,
+after burning the magical drugs with which they were always provided,
+they, stripping themselves naked, waded to their chins, Nerkes and Cafour
+waving torches around them, and Carathis pronouncing her barbarous
+incantations.  The fishes with one accord thrust forth their heads from
+the water, which was violently rippled by the flutter of their fins, and
+at length finding themselves constrained by the potency of the charm,
+they opened their piteous mouths, said:
+
+“From gills to tail we are yours; what seek ye to know?”
+
+“Fishes,” answered she, “I conjure you by your glittering scales, tell me
+where now is Gulchenrouz?”
+
+“Beyond the rock,” replied the shoal in full chorus: “will this content
+you? for we do not delight in expanding our mouths.”
+
+“It will,” returned the princess: “I am not to learn that you like not
+long conversations; I will leave you therefore to repose, though I had
+other questions to propound.”
+
+The instant she had spoken the water became smooth, and the fishes at
+once disappeared.
+
+Carathis, inflated with the venom of her projects, strode hastily over
+the rock, and found the amiable Gulchenrouz asleep in an arbour, whilst
+the two dwarfs were watching at his side, and ruminating their accustomed
+prayers.  These diminutive personages possessed the gift of divining
+whenever an enemy to good Mussulmans approached; thus they anticipated
+the arrival of Carathis, who stopping short, said to herself:
+
+“How placidly doth he recline his lovely little head! how pale and
+languishing are his looks! it is just the very child of my wishes!”
+
+The dwarfs interrupted this delectable soliloquy by leaping instantly
+upon her, and scratching her face with their utmost zeal.  But Nerkes and
+Cafour betaking themselves to the succour of their mistress, pinched the
+dwarfs so severely in return, that they both gave up the ghost, imploring
+Mahomet to inflict his sorest vengeance upon this wicked woman and all
+her household.
+
+At the noise which this strange conflict occasioned in the valley,
+Gulchenrouz awoke, and bewildered with terror sprung impetuously upon an
+old fig-tree that rose against the acclivity of the rocks, from thence
+gained their summits, and ran for two hours without once looking back.
+At last, exhausted with fatigue, he fell as if dead into the arms of a
+good old Genius, whose fondness for the company of children had made it
+his sole occupation to protect them, and who, whilst performing his
+wonted rounds through the air, happening on the cruel Giaour at the
+instant of his growling in the horrible chasm, rescued the fifty little
+victims which the impiety of Vathek had devoted to his maw.  These the
+Genius brought up in nests still higher than the clouds, and himself
+fixed his abode in a nest more capacious than the rest, from which he had
+expelled the possessors that had built it.
+
+These inviolable asylums were defended against the Dives and the Afrits
+by waving streamers, on which were inscribed in characters of gold that
+flashed like lightning, the names of Alla and the prophet.  It was there
+that Gulchenrouz, who as yet remained undeceived with respect to his
+pretended death, thought himself in the mansions of eternal peace.  He
+admitted without fear the congratulations of his little friends, who were
+all assembled in the nest of the venerable Genius, and vied with each
+other in kissing his serene forehead and beautiful eye-lids.  This he
+found to be the state congenial to his soul—remote from the inquietudes
+of earth—the impertinence of harems—the brutality of eunuchs—and the
+lubricity of women.  In this peaceable society his days, months, and
+years glided on, nor was he less happy than the rest of his companions,
+for the Genius, instead of burdening his pupils with perishable riches,
+and the vain sciences of the world, conferred upon them the boon of
+perpetual childhood.
+
+Carathis, unaccustomed to the loss of her prey, vented a thousand
+execrations on her negresses for not seizing the child, instead of
+amusing themselves with pinching to death the dwarfs, from which they
+could gain no advantage.  She returned into the valley murmuring, and
+finding that her son was not risen from the arms of Nouronihar,
+discharged her ill-humour upon both.  The idea, however, of departing
+next day for Istakar, and cultivating, through the good offices of the
+Giaour, an intimacy with Eblis himself, at length consoled her chagrin:
+but fate had ordained it otherwise.
+
+In the evening, as Carathis was conversing with Dilara, who through her
+contrivance had become of the party, and whose taste resembled her own,
+Bababalouk came to acquaint her “that the sky towards Samarah looked of a
+fiery red, and seemed to portend some alarming disaster.”  Immediately
+recurring to her astrolabes and instruments of magic, she took the
+altitude of the planets, and discovered by her calculations, to her great
+mortification, that a formidable revolt had taken place at Samarah; that
+Motavakel, availing himself of the disgust which was inveterate against
+his brother had incited commotions amongst the populace, made himself
+master of the palace, and actually invested the great tower, to which
+Morakanabad had retired with a handful of the few that still remained
+faithful to Vathek.
+
+“What,” exclaimed she, “must I lose then my tower, my mutes, my
+negresses, my mummies, and worse than all, the laboratory, in which I
+have spent so many a night, without knowing, at least, if my hair-brained
+son will complete his adventure?  No! I will not be the dupe!
+Immediately will I speed to support Morakanabad.  By my formidable art
+the clouds shall sleet hail-stones in the faces of the assailants, and
+shafts of red-hot iron on their heads.  I will spring mines of serpents
+and torpedoes from beneath them, and we shall soon see the stand they
+will make against such an explosion!”
+
+Having thus spoken, Carathis hasted to her son, who was tranquilly
+banqueting with Nouronihar in his superb carnation coloured tent.
+
+“Glutton that thou art,” cried she, “were it not for me, thou wouldst
+soon find thyself the commander only of pies.  Thy faithful subjects have
+abjured the faith they swore to thee.  Motavakel thy brother now reigns
+on the hill of pied horses; and had I not some slight resources in the
+tower, would not be easily persuaded to abdicate.  But that time may not
+be lost, I shall only add four words: strike tent to-night; set forward;
+and beware how thou loiterest again by the way.  Though thou hast
+forfeited the conditions of the parchment, I am not yet without hope; for
+it cannot be denied that thou hast violated to admiration the laws of
+hospitality by seducing the daughter of the emir, after having partaken
+of his bread and his salt.  Such a conduct cannot but be delightful to
+the Giaour; and if on thy march thou canst signalize thyself by an
+additional crime, all will still go well, and thou shalt enter the palace
+of Soliman in triumph.  Adieu!  Alboufaki and my negresses are waiting.”
+
+The Caliph had nothing to offer in reply: he wished his mother a
+prosperous journey, and eat on till he had finished his supper.  At
+midnight the camp broke up, amidst the flourishing of trumpets and other
+martial instruments; but loud indeed must have been the sound of the
+tymbals, to overpower the blubbering of the emir and his long-beards, who
+by an excessive profusion of tears had so far exhausted the radical
+moisture, that their eyes shrivelled up in their sockets, and their hairs
+dropped off by the roots.  Nouronihar, to whom such a symphony was
+painful, did not grieve to get out of hearing.  She accompanied the
+Caliph in the imperial litter, where they amused themselves with
+imagining the splendour which was soon to surround them.  The other
+women, overcome with dejection, were dolefully rocked in their cages,
+whilst Dilara consoled herself with anticipating the joy of celebrating
+the rites of fire on the stately terraces of Istakar.
+
+In four days they reached the spacious valley of Rocnabad.  The season of
+spring was in all its vigour, and the grotesque branches of the almond
+trees in full blossom fantastically chequered the clear blue sky.  The
+earth, variegated with hyacinths and jonquils, breathed forth a fragrance
+which diffused through the soul a divine repose.  Myriads of bees, and
+scarce fewer of Santons had there taken up their abode.  On the banks of
+the stream hives and oratories were alternately ranged, and their
+neatness and whiteness were set off by the deep green of the cypresses
+that spired up amongst them.  These pious personages amused themselves
+with cultivating little gardens that abounded with flowers and fruits,
+especially musk-melons of the best flavour that Persia could boast.
+Sometimes dispersed over the meadow they entertained themselves with
+feeding peacocks whiter than snow, and turtles more blue than the
+sapphire.  In this manner were they occupied when the harbingers of the
+imperial procession began to proclaim:
+
+“Inhabitants of Rocnabad, prostrate yourselves on the brink of your pure
+waters, and tender your thanksgivings to heaven that vouchsafeth to shew
+you a ray of its glory; for lo! the commander of the faithful draws
+near.”
+
+The poor Santons, filled with holy energy, having bustled to light up wax
+torches in their oratories, and expand the koran on their ebony desks,
+went forth to meet the Caliph with baskets of honeycomb, dates, and
+melons.  But whilst they were advancing in solemn procession and with
+measured steps, the horses, camels, and guards wantoned over their tulips
+and other flowers, and made a terrible havoc amongst them.  The Santons
+could not help casting from one eye a look of pity on the ravages
+committing around them, whilst the other was fixed upon the Caliph and
+heaven.  Nouronihar, enraptured with the scenery of a place which brought
+back to her remembrance the pleasing solitudes where her infancy had
+passed, entreated Vathek to stop, but he, suspecting that each oratory
+might be deemed by the Giaour a distinct habitation, commanded his
+pioneers to level them all.  The Santons stood motionless with horror at
+the barbarous mandate, and at last broke out into lamentations, but these
+were uttered with so ill a grace, that Vathek bade his eunuchs to kick
+them from his presence.  He then descended from the litter with
+Nouronihar.  They sauntered together in the meadow, and amused themselves
+with culling flowers, and passing a thousand pleasantries on each other.
+But the bees, who were staunch Mussulmans, thinking it their duty to
+revenge the insult on their dear masters the Santons, assembled so
+zealously to do it with effect, that the Caliph and Nouronihar were glad
+to find their tents prepared to receive them.
+
+Bababalouk, who in capacity of purveyor, had acquitted himself with
+applause, as to peacocks and turtles, lost no time in consigning some
+dozens to the spit, and as many more to be fricasseed.  Whilst they were
+feasting, laughing, carousing, and blaspheming at pleasure on the banquet
+so liberally furnished, the Moullahs, the Sheiks, the Cadis, and Imans of
+Schiraz (who seemed not to have met the Santons) arrived, leading by
+bridles of ribband, inscribed from the koran, a train of asses which were
+loaded with the choicest fruits the country could boast.  Having
+presented their offerings to the Caliph, they petitioned him to honour
+their city and mosques with his presence.
+
+“Fancy not,” said Vathek, “that you can detain me.  Your presents I
+condescend to accept, but beg you will let me be quiet, for I am not over
+fond of resisting temptation.  Retire then.  Yet, as it is not decent for
+personages so reverend to return on foot, and as you have not the
+appearance of expert riders, my eunuchs shall tie you on your asses with
+the precaution that your backs be not turned towards me, for they
+understand etiquette.”
+
+In this deputation were some high-stomached Sheiks, who taking Vathek for
+a fool, scrupled not to speak their opinion.  These Bababalouk girded
+with double cords; and having well disciplined their asses with nettles
+behind, they all started with a preternatural alertness, plunging,
+kicking, and running foul of each other in the most ludicrous manner
+imaginable.
+
+Nouronihar and the Caliph mutually contended who should most enjoy so
+degrading a sight.  They burst out in volleys of laughter to see the old
+men and their asses fall into the stream.  The leg of one was fractured,
+the shoulder of another dislocated, the teeth of a third dashed out, and
+the rest suffered still worse.
+
+Two days more, undisturbed by fresh embassies, having been devoted to the
+pleasures of Rocnabad, the expedition proceeded, leaving Schiraz on the
+right, and verging towards a large plain, from whence were discernible on
+the edge of the horizon the dark summits of the mountains of Istakar.
+
+At this prospect the Caliph and Nouronihar were unable to repress their
+transports.  They bounded from their litter to the ground, and broke
+forth into such wild exclamations as amazed all within hearing.
+Interrogating each other, they shouted,
+
+“Are we not approaching the radiant palace of light, or gardens more
+delightful than those of Sheddad?”
+
+Infatuated mortals! they thus indulged delusive conjecture, unable to
+fathom the decrees of the Most High!
+
+The good Genii who had not totally relinquished the superintendence of
+Vathek, repairing to Mahomet in the seventh heaven, said:
+
+“Merciful Prophet! stretch forth thy propitious arms towards thy
+vicegerent, who is ready to fall irretrievably into the snare which his
+enemies the Dives have prepared to destroy him.  The Giaour is awaiting
+his arrival in the abominable palace of fire, where if he once set his
+foot his perdition will be inevitable.”
+
+Mahomet answered with an air of indignation:
+
+“He hath too well deserved to be resigned to himself; but I permit you to
+try if one effort more will be effectual to divert him from pursuing his
+ruin.”
+
+One of these beneficent Genii, assuming without delay the exterior of a
+shepherd, more renowned for his piety than all the Dervises and Santons
+of the region, took his station near a flock of white sheep on the slope
+of a hill, and began to pour forth from his flute such airs of pathetic
+melody, as subdued the very soul; and awakening remorse, drove far from
+it every frivolous fancy.  At these energetic sounds, the sun hid himself
+beneath a gloomy cloud; and the waters of two little lakes, that were
+naturally clearer than chrystal, became a colour like blood.  The whole
+of this superb assembly, was involuntarily drawn towards the declivity of
+the hill.  With downcast eyes, they all stood abashed; each upbraiding
+himself with the evil he had done.  The heart of Dilara palpitated; and
+the chief of the eunuchs, with a sigh of contrition, implored pardon of
+the women, whom, for his own satisfaction, he had so often tormented.
+
+Vathek and Nouronihar turned pale in their litter; and, regarding each
+other with haggard looks, reproached themselves—the one with a thousand
+of the blackest crimes, a thousand projects of impious ambition; the
+other, with the desolation of her family, and the perdition of the
+amiable Gulchenrouz.  Nouronihar persuaded herself that she heard in the
+fatal music the groans of her dying father; and Vathek, the sobs of the
+fifty children he had sacrificed to the Giaour.  Amidst these complicated
+pangs of anguish, they perceived themselves impelled towards the
+shepherd, whose countenance was so commanding, that Vathek, for the first
+time, felt overawed; whilst Nouronihar concealed her face with her hands.
+The music paused, and the Genius, addressing the Caliph, said:
+
+“Deluded Prince! to whom Providence hath confided the care of innumerable
+subjects, is it thus that thou fulfillest thy mission?  Thy crimes are
+already completed; and, art thou now hastening towards thy punishment?
+Thou knowest, that beyond these mountains, Eblis and his accursed Dives
+hold their infernal empire; and seduced by a malignant phantom, thou art
+proceeding to surrender thyself to them!  This moment is the last of
+grace allowed thee!  Abandon thy atrocious purpose.  Return.  Give back
+Nouronihar to her father, who still retains a few sparks of life.
+Destroy thy tower, with all its abominations.  Drive Carathis from thy
+councils.  Be just to thy subjects.  Respect the ministers of the
+Prophet.  Compensate for thy impieties by an exemplary life; and, instead
+of squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy crimes on
+the sepulchres of thy ancestors.  Thou beholdest the clouds that obscure
+the sun; at the instant he recovers his splendour, if thy heart be not
+changed, the time of mercy assigned thee will be past for ever.”
+
+Vathek, depressed with fear, was on the point of prostrating himself at
+the feet of the shepherd, whom he perceived to be of a nature superior to
+man, but his pride prevailing, he audaciously lifted his head, and
+glancing at him one of his terrible looks, said:
+
+“Whoever thou art, withhold thy useless admonitions.  Thou wouldst either
+delude me, or art thyself deceived.  If what I have done be so criminal
+as thou pretendest, there remains not for me a moment of grace.  I have
+traversed a sea of blood, to acquire a power which will make thy equals
+tremble; deem not that I shall retire when in view of the port; or that I
+will relinquish her who is dearer to me than either my life or thy mercy.
+Let the sun appear!  Let him illumine my career!  It matters not where it
+may end.”
+
+On uttering these words, which made even the Genius shudder, Vathek threw
+himself into the arms of Nouronihar, and commanded that his horses should
+be forced back to the road.
+
+There was no difficulty in obeying these orders, for the attraction had
+ceased, the sun shone forth in all his glory, and the shepherd vanished
+with a lamentable scream.
+
+The fatal impression of the music of the Genius remained,
+notwithstanding, in the hearts of Vathek’s attendants.  They viewed each
+other with looks of consternation.  At the approach of night, almost all
+of them escaped; and, of this numerous assemblage, there only remained
+the chief of the eunuchs, some idolatrous slaves, Dilara, and a few other
+women, who, like herself, were votaries of the religion of the Magi.
+
+The Caliph, fired with the ambition of prescribing laws to the
+Intelligences of Darkness, was but little embarrassed at this
+dereliction.  The impetuosity of his blood prevented him from sleeping;
+nor did he encamp any more as before.  Nouronihar, whose impatience, if
+possible, exceeded his own, importuned him to hasten his march, and
+lavished on him a thousand caresses, to beguile all reflection.  She
+fancied herself already more potent than Balkis; {134} and pictured to
+her imagination the Genii falling prostrate at the foot of her throne.
+In this manner they advanced by moonlight, till they came within view of
+the two towering rocks, that form a kind of portal to the valley, at
+whose extremity rose the vast ruins of Istakar.  Aloft on the mountain,
+glimmered the fronts of various royal mausoleums, the horror of which was
+deepened by the shadows of night.  They passed through two villages,
+almost deserted; the only inhabitants remaining being a few feeble old
+men, who at the sight of horses and litters fell upon their knees, and
+cried out:
+
+“O heaven! is it then by these phantoms that we have been for six months
+tormented!  Alas! it was from the terror of these spectres, and the noise
+beneath the mountains, that our people have fled, and left us at the
+mercy of maleficent spirits!”
+
+The Caliph, to whom these complaints were but unpromising auguries, drove
+over the bodies of these wretched old men, and at length arrived at the
+foot of the terrace of black marble.  There he descended from his litter,
+handing down Nouronihar; both, with beating hearts, stared wildly around
+them, and expected, with an apprehensive shudder, the approach of the
+Giaour.  But nothing as yet announced his appearance.
+
+A deathlike stillness reigned over the mountain, and through the air.
+The moon dilated, on a vast platform, the shades of the lofty columns,
+which reached from the terrace almost to the clouds.  The gloomy
+watch-towers, whose number could not be counted, were veiled by no roof:
+and their capitals, of an architecture unknown in the records of the
+earth, served as an asylum for the birds of darkness, which, alarmed at
+the approach of such visitants, fled away croaking.
+
+The chief of the eunuchs, trembling with fear, besought Vathek that a
+fire might be kindled.
+
+“No!” replied he, “there is no time left to think of such trifles; abide
+where thou art, and expect my commands.”
+
+Having thus spoken, he presented his hand to Nouronihar, and ascending
+the steps of a vast staircase, reached the terrace, which was flagged
+with squares of marble, and resembled a smooth expanse of water, upon
+whose surface not a leaf ever dared to vegetate.  On the right rose the
+watch-towers, ranged before the ruins of an immense palace, whose walls
+were embossed with various figures.  In front stood forth the colossal
+forms of four creatures, composed of the leopard and the griffin; and
+though but of stone, inspired emotions of terror.  Near these were
+distinguished by the splendour of the moon, which streamed full on the
+place, characters like those on the sabres of the Giaour, that possessed
+the same virtue of changing every moment.  These, after vacillating for
+some time, at last fixed in Arabic letters, and prescribed to the Caliph
+the following words:
+
+“Vathek! thou hast violated the conditions of my parchment, and deservest
+to be sent back; but in favour to thy companion, and as the meed for what
+thou hast done to obtain it, Eblis permitteth that the portal of his
+palace shall be opened, and the subterranean fire will receive thee into
+the number of its adorers.”
+
+He scarcely had read these words before the mountain, against which the
+terrace was reared, trembled; and the watch-towers were ready to topple
+headlong upon them.  The rock yawned, and disclosed within it a staircase
+of polished marble, that seemed to approach the abyss.  Upon each stair
+were planted two large torches, like those Nouronihar had seen in her
+vision, the camphorated vapour ascending from which gathered into a cloud
+under the hollow of the vault.
+
+This appearance, instead of terrifying, gave new courage to the daughter
+of Fakreddin.  Scarcely deigning to bid adieu to the moon and the
+firmament, she abandoned without hesitation the pure atmosphere, to
+plunge into these infernal exhalations.   The gait of those impious
+personages was haughty and determined.  As they descended, by the
+effulgence of the torches, they gazed on each other with mutual
+admiration, and both appeared so resplendent, that they already esteemed
+themselves spiritual intelligences.  The only circumstance that perplexed
+them, was their not arriving at the bottom of the stairs.  On hastening
+their descent, with an ardent impetuosity, they felt their steps
+accelerated to such a degree, that they seemed not walking, but falling
+from a precipice.  Their progress, however, was at length impeded by a
+vast portal of ebony, which the Caliph without difficulty recognized.
+Here the Giaour awaited them, with the key in his hand,
+
+“Ye are welcome!” said he to them, with a ghastly smile, “in spite of
+Mahomet, and all his dependents.  I will now admit you into that palace,
+where you have so highly merited a place.”
+
+Whilst he was uttering these words, he touched the enamelled lock with
+his key, and the doors at once expanded with a noise still louder than
+the thunder of mountains, and as suddenly recoiled the moment they had
+entered.
+
+The Caliph and Nouronihar beheld each other with amazement, at finding
+themselves in a place which, though roofed with a vaulted ceiling, was so
+spacious and lofty, that at first they took it for an immeasurable plain.
+But their eyes at length growing to the grandeur of the objects at hand,
+they extended their view to those at a distance, and discovered rows of
+columns and arcades, which gradually diminished, till they terminated in
+a point, radiant as the sun, when he darts his last beams athwart the
+ocean.  The pavement, strewed over with gold dust and saffron, exhaled so
+subtile an odour, as almost overpowered them.  They, however, went on,
+and observed an infinity of censers, in which ambergris and the wood of
+aloes were continually burning.  Between the several columns were placed
+tables, each spread with a profusion of viands, and wines of every
+species, sparkling in vases of chrystal.  A throng of Genii, and other
+phantastic spirits, of each sex, danced lasciviously in troops, at the
+sound of music which issued from beneath.
+
+In the midst of this immense hall, a vast multitude was incessantly
+passing, who severally kept their right hands on their hearts, without
+once regarding any thing around them.  They had all the livid paleness of
+death.  Their eyes, deep sank in their sockets, resembled those
+phosphoric meteors, that glimmer by night in places of interment.  Some
+stalked slowly on, absorbed in profound reverie; some shrieking with
+agony, ran furiously about, like tigers wounded with poisoned arrows;
+whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along, more frantic
+than the wildest maniac.  They all avoided each other, and though
+surrounded by a multitude that no one could number, each wandered at
+random unheedful of the rest, as if alone on a desert which no foot had
+trodden.
+
+Vathek and Nouronihar, frozen with terror at a sight so baleful, demanded
+of the Giaour what these appearances might mean, and why these ambulating
+spectres never withdrew their hands from their hearts.
+
+“Perplex not yourselves,” replied he bluntly, “with so much at once, you
+will soon be acquainted with all; let us haste and present you to Eblis.”
+
+They continued their way through the multitude, but notwithstanding their
+confidence at first, they were not sufficiently composed to examine with
+attention the various perspectives of halls, and of galleries, that
+opened on the right hand and left, which were all illuminated by torches
+and braziers, whose flames rose in pyramids, to the centre of the vault.
+At length they came to a place where long curtains, brocaded with crimson
+and gold, fell from all parts, in striking confusion.  Here the choirs
+and dances were heard no longer.  The light which glimmered came from
+afar.
+
+After some time Vathek and Nouronihar perceived a gleam brightening
+through the drapery, and entered a vast tabernacle, carpeted with the
+skins of leopards.  An infinity of elders, with streaming beards, and
+afrits, in complete armour, had prostrated themselves before the ascent
+of a lofty eminence, on the top of which, upon a globe of fire, sat the
+formidable Eblis.  His person was that of a young man, whose noble and
+regular features seemed to have been tarnished by malignant vapours.  In
+his large eyes appeared both pride and despair; his flowing hair retained
+some resemblance to that of an angel of light.  In his hand, which
+thunder had blasted, he swayed the iron sceptre, that causes the monster
+Ouranabad, {140} the afrits, and all the powers of the abyss to tremble.
+At his presence the heart of the Caliph sank within him, and, for the
+first time, he fell prostrate on his face.  Nouronihar, however, though
+greatly dismayed, could not help admiring the person of Eblis, for she
+expected to have seen some stupendous giant.  Eblis, with a voice more
+mild than might be imagined, but such as transfused through the soul the
+deepest melancholy, said:
+
+“CREATURES OF CLAY, I receive you into mine empire.  Ye are numbered
+amongst my adorers.  Enjoy whatever this palace affords—the treasures of
+the preadimite sultans, their bickering sabres, and those talismans that
+compel the Dives to open the subterranean expanses of the mountain of
+Kaf, which communicate with these.  There, insatiable as your curiosity
+may be, shall you find sufficient to gratify it.  You shall possess the
+exclusive privilege of entering the fortress of Aherman, and the halls of
+Argenk, where are portrayed all creatures endowed with intelligence, and
+the various animals that inhabited the earth prior to the creation of
+that contemptible being, whom ye denominate the Father of Mankind.”
+
+Vathek and Nouronihar feeling themselves revived and encouraged by this
+harangue, eagerly said to the Giaour:
+
+“Bring us instantly to the place which contains these precious
+talismans.”
+
+“Come,” answered this wicked Dive, with his malignant grin, “come, and
+possess all that my sovereign hath promised, and more.”
+
+He then conducted them into a long aisle adjoining the tabernacle,
+preceding them with hasty steps, and followed by his disciples with the
+utmost alacrity.  They reached at length a hall of great extent, and
+covered with a lofty dome, around which appeared fifty portals of bronze,
+secured with as many fastenings of iron.  A funereal gloom prevailed over
+the whole scene.  Here, upon two beds of incorruptible cedar, lay
+recumbent the fleshless forms of the preadimite kings, who had been
+monarchs of the whole earth.  They still possessed enough of life to be
+conscious of their deplorable condition.  Their eyes retained a
+melancholy motion; they regarded each other with looks of the deepest
+dejection, each holding his right hand motionless on his heart.  At their
+feet were inscribed the events of their several reigns, their power,
+their pride, and their crimes.  Soliman Raad, Soliman Daki, and Soliman
+Di Gian Ben Gian, who, after having chained up the Dives in the dark
+caverns of Kaf, became so presumptuous, as to doubt of the Supreme Power.
+All these maintained great state, though not to be compared with the
+eminence of Soliman Ben Daoud.
+
+This king, so renowned for his wisdom, was on the loftiest elevation, and
+placed immediately under the dome.  He appeared to possess more animation
+than the rest, though, from time to time, he laboured with profound
+sighs, and, like his companions, kept his right hand on his heart; yet
+his countenance was more composed, and he seemed to be listening to the
+sullen roar of a vast cataract, visible in part through the grated
+portals.  This was the only sound that intruded on the silence of these
+doleful mansions.  A range of brazen vases surrounded the elevation.
+
+“Remove the covers from these cabalistic depositaries,” said the Giaour
+to Vathek, “and avail thyself of the talismans, which will break asunder
+all these gates of bronze, and not only render thee master of the
+treasures contained within them, but also of the spirits by which they
+are guarded.”
+
+The Caliph, whom this ominous preliminary had entirely disconcerted,
+approached the vases with faltering footsteps, and was ready to sink with
+terror, when he heard the groans of Soliman.  As he proceeded, a voice
+from the livid lips of the prophet articulated these words:
+
+“In my lifetime, I filled a magnificent throne, having on my right hand
+twelve thousand seats of gold, where the patriarchs and prophets heard my
+doctrines; on my left the sages and doctors, upon as many thrones of
+silver, were present at all my decisions.  Whilst I thus administered
+justice to innumerable multitudes, the birds of the air librating over
+me, served as a canopy from the rays of the sun.  My people flourished,
+and my palace rose to the clouds.  I erected a temple to the Most High,
+which was the wonder of the universe; but I basely suffered myself to be
+seduced by the love of women, and a curiosity that could not be
+restrained by sub-lunary things.  I listened to the counsels of Aherman,
+and the daughter of Pharaoh; and adored fire, and the host of heaven.  I
+forsook the holy city, and commanded the Genii to rear the stupendous
+palace of Istakar, and the terrace of the watch-towers, each of which was
+consecrated to a star.  There for a while I enjoyed myself in the zenith
+of glory and pleasure.  Not only men, but supernatural existences were
+subject also to my will.  I began to think, as these unhappy monarchs
+around had already thought, that the vengeance of heaven was asleep, when
+at once the thunder burst my structures asunder, and precipitated me
+hither; where, however, I do not remain like the other inhabitants
+totally destitute of hope, for an angel of light hath revealed, that in
+consideration of the piety of my early youth, my woes shall come to an
+end when this cataract shall for ever cease to flow.  Till then I am in
+torments, ineffable torments, an unrelenting fire preys on my heart.”
+
+Having uttered this exclamation, Soliman raised his hands towards heaven,
+in token of supplication, and the Caliph discerned through his bosom,
+which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames.  At a
+sight so full of horror, Nouronihar fell back like one petrified, into
+the arms of Vathek, who cried out with a convulsive sob:
+
+“O Giaour! whither hast thou brought us!  Allow us to depart, and I will
+relinquish all thou hast promised.  O Mahomet! remains there no more
+mercy!”
+
+“None! none!” replied the malicious Dive.  “Know, miserable prince, thou
+art now in the abode of vengeance, and despair.  Thy heart, also, will be
+kindled, like those of the other votaries of Eblis.  A few days are
+allotted thee previous to this fatal period: employ them as thou wilt.
+Recline on these heaps of gold: command the Infernal Potentates: range at
+thy pleasure through these immense subterranean domains.  No barrier
+shall be shut against thee.  As for me, I have fulfilled my mission.  I
+now leave thee to thyself.”
+
+At these words he vanished.
+
+The Caliph and Nouronihar remained in the most abject affliction.  Their
+tears unable to flow, scarcely could they support themselves.  At length,
+taking each other despondingly by the hand, they went faltering from this
+fatal hall, indifferent which way they turned their steps.  Every portal
+opened at their approach.  The Dives fell prostrate before them.  Every
+reservoir of riches was disclosed to their view, but they no longer felt
+the incentives of curiosity, pride, or avarice.  With like apathy they
+heard the chorus of Genii, and saw the stately banquets prepared to
+regale them.  They went wandering on from chamber to chamber, hall to
+hall, and gallery to gallery; all without bounds or limit; all
+distinguishable by the same lowering gloom; all adorned with the same
+awful grandeur; all traversed by persons in search of repose and
+consolation, but who sought them in vain, for every one carried within
+him a heart tormented in flames.  Shunned by these various sufferers, who
+seemed by their looks to be upbraiding the partners of their guilt, they
+withdrew from them, to wait in direful suspense the moment which should
+render them to each other the like objects of terror.
+
+“What,” exclaimed Nouronihar, “will the time come, when I shall snatch my
+hand from thine!”
+
+“Ah!” said Vathek, “and shall my eyes ever cease to drink from thine long
+draughts of enjoyment!  Shall the moments of our reciprocal ecstasies be
+reflected on with horror!  It was not thou that broughtest me hither; the
+principles by which Carathis perverted my youth have been the sole cause
+of my perdition!”
+
+Having given vent to these painful expressions, he called to an Afrit,
+who was stirring up one of the braziers, and bade him fetch the Princess
+Carathis from the palace of Samarah.
+
+After issuing these orders, the Caliph and Nouronihar continued walking
+amidst the silent crowd, till they heard voices at the end of the
+gallery.  Presuming them to proceed from some unhappy beings, who like
+themselves were awaiting their final doom, they followed the sound, and
+found it to come from a small square chamber, where they discovered
+sitting on sofas, five young men of goodly figure, and a lovely female,
+who were all holding a melancholy conversation, by the glimmering of a
+lonely lamp.  Each had a gloomy and forlorn air, and two of them were
+embracing each other with great tenderness.  On seeing the Caliph and the
+daughter of Fakreddin enter they arose, saluted, and gave them place.
+Then he who had appeared the most considerable of the group, addressed
+himself thus to Vathek:
+
+“Strangers! who doubtless are in the same state of suspense as ourselves,
+as you do not yet bear your hand on your heart, if you are come hither to
+pass the interval allotted previous to the infliction of our common
+punishment, condescend to relate the adventures that have brought you to
+this fatal place; and we in return will acquaint you with ours; which
+deserves but too well to be heard.  We will trace back our crimes to
+their source, though we are not permitted to repent.  This is the only
+employment suited to wretches like us.”
+
+The Caliph and Nouronihar assented to the proposal, and Vathek began, not
+without tears and lamentations, a sincere recital of every circumstance
+that had passed.  When the afflicting narrative was closed, the young man
+entered on his own.  Each person proceeded in order, and when the fourth
+prince had reached the midst of his adventures, a sudden noise
+interrupted him, which caused the vault to tremble, and to open.
+
+Immediately a cloud descended, which gradually dissipating, discovered
+Carathis, on the back of an Afrit, who grievously complained of his
+burden.  She, instantly springing to the ground, advanced towards her
+son, and said:
+
+“What dost thou here, in this little square chamber?  As the Dives are
+become subject to thy beck, I expected to have found thee on the throne
+of the preadimite kings.”
+
+“Execrable woman!” answered the Caliph; “cursed be the day thou gavest me
+birth!  Go! follow this Afrit; let him conduct thee to the hall of the
+Prophet Soliman; there thou wilt learn to what these palaces are
+destined, and how much I ought to abhor the impious knowledge thou hast
+taught me.”
+
+“The height of power to which thou art arrived, has certainly turned thy
+brain,” answered Carathis; “but I ask no more, than permission to show my
+respect for the prophet.  It is, however, proper thou shouldst know,
+that, as the Afrit has informed me neither of us shall return to Samarah,
+I requested his permission to arrange my affairs, and he politely
+consented.  Availing myself, therefore, of the few moments allowed me, I
+set fire to the tower, and consumed in it the mutes, negresses, and
+serpents, which have rendered me so much good service; nor should I have
+been less kind to Morakanabad, had he not prevented me, by deserting at
+last to thy brother.  As for Bababalouk, who had the folly to return to
+Samarah, and all the good brotherhood to provide husbands for thy wives,
+I undoubtedly would have put them to the torture, could I but have
+allowed them the time.  Being, however, in a hurry, I only hung him,
+after having caught him in a snare with thy wives; whilst them I buried
+alive by the help of my negresses, who thus spent their last moments,
+greatly to their satisfaction.  With respect to Dilara, who ever stood
+high in my favour, she hath evinced the greatness of her mind, by fixing
+herself near, in the service of one of the Magi, and, I think, will soon
+be our own.”
+
+Vathek, too much cast down to express the indignation excited by such a
+discourse, ordered the Afrit to remove Carathis from his presence, and
+continued immersed in thought, which his companions durst not disturb.
+
+Carathis, however, eagerly entered the dome of Soliman, and, without
+regarding in the least the groans of the Prophet, undauntedly removed the
+covers of the vases, and violently seized on the talismans.  Then, with a
+voice more loud than had hitherto been heard in these mansions, she
+compelled the Dives to disclose to her the most secret treasures, the
+most profound stores, which the Afrit himself had not seen.  She passed
+by rapid descents known only to Eblis and his most favoured Potentates,
+and thus penetrated the very entrails of the earth, where breathes the
+Sansar, or icy wind of death.  Nothing appalled her dauntless soul.  She
+perceived, however, in all the inmates who bore their hands on their
+heart, a little singularity not much to her taste.  As she was emerging
+from one of the abysses, Eblis stood forth to her view, but,
+notwithstanding he displayed the full effulgence of his infernal majesty,
+she preserved her countenance unaltered, and even paid her compliments
+with considerable firmness.
+
+This superb monarch thus answered:
+
+“PRINCESS, whose knowledge and whose crimes have merited a conspicuous
+rank in my empire, thou doest well to employ the leisure that remains,
+for the flames and torments which are ready to seize on thy heart, will
+not fail to provide thee with full employment.”
+
+He said this, and was lost in the curtains of his tabernacle.
+
+Carathis paused for a moment with surprise, but, resolved to follow the
+advice of Eblis, she assembled all the choirs of Genii, and all the
+Dives, to pay her homage.  Thus marched she in triumph through a vapour
+of perfumes, amidst the acclamations of all the malignant spirits; with
+most of whom she had formed a previous acquaintance.  She even attempted
+to dethrone one of the Solimans, for the purpose of usurping his place,
+when a voice, proceeding from the Abyss of Death, proclaimed:
+
+“ALL IS ACCOMPLISHED!”
+
+Instantaneously, the haughty forehead of the intrepid princess became
+corrugated with agony; she uttered a tremendous yell, and fixed—no more
+to be withdrawn—her right hand upon her heart, which was become a
+receptacle of eternal fire.
+
+In this delirium, forgetting all ambitious projects, and her thirst for
+that knowledge which should ever be hidden from mortals, she overturned
+the offerings of the Genii; and, having execrated the hour she was
+begotten, and the womb that had borne her, glanced off in a whirl that
+rendered her invisible, and continued to revolve without intermission.
+
+At almost the same instant, the same voice announced to the Caliph,
+Nouronihar, the five princes, and the princess, the awful and irrevocable
+decree.  Their hearts immediately took fire, and they at once lost the
+most precious of the gifts of heaven—HOPE.  These unhappy beings
+recoiled, with looks of the most furious distraction.  Vathek beheld in
+the eyes of Nouronihar nothing but rage and vengeance; nor could she
+discern ought in his but aversion and despair.  The two princes who were
+friends, and till that moment had preserved their attachment, shrunk
+back, gnashing their teeth with mutual and unchangeable hatred.  Kalilah
+and his sister made reciprocal gestures of imprecation; whilst the two
+other princes testified their horror for each other by the most ghastly
+convulsions, and screams that could not be smothered.  All severally
+plunged themselves into the accursed multitude, there to wander in an
+eternity of unabating anguish.
+
+Such was, and such should be, the punishment of unrestrained passions,
+and atrocious actions.  Such is, and such should be, the chastisement of
+blind ambition, that would transgress those bounds which the Creator hath
+prescribed to human knowledge, and by aiming at discoveries reserved for
+pure intelligence, acquire that infatuated pride, which perceives not the
+condition appointed to man is, TO BE IGNORANT AND HUMBLE.
+
+Thus the CALIPH VATHEK who, for the sake of empty pomp and forbidden
+power, hath sullied himself with a thousand crimes, became a prey to
+grief without end, and remorse without mitigation; whilst the humble and
+despised GULCHENROUZ passed whole ages in undisturbed tranquillity, and
+the pure happiness of childhood.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+{7a}  _Caliph_.  This title amongst the Mahometans comprehends the
+concrete character of prophet, priest, and king; and is used to signify
+_the Vicar of God on earth_.—Habesci’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 9.
+Herbelot, p. 985.
+
+{7b}  _One of his eyes became so terrible_.  The author of Nighiaristan
+hath preserved a fact that supports this account; and there is no history
+of Vathek, in which his _terrible eye_ is not mentioned.
+
+{8a}  _Omar Ben Abdalaziz_.  This Caliph was eminent above all others for
+temperance and self-denial; insomuch, that he is believed to have been
+raised to Mahomet’s bosom, as a reward for his abstinence in an age of
+corruption.  Herbelot, p. 690.
+
+{8b}  _Samarah_.  A city of the Babylonian Irak, supposed to have stood
+on the site where Nimrod erected his tower.  Khondemir relates, in his
+life of Motassem, that this prince, to terminate the disputes which were
+perpetually happening between the inhabitants of Bagdat and his Turkish
+slaves, withdrew from thence; and, having fixed on a situation in the
+plain of Catoul, there founded Samarah.  He is said to have had in the
+stables of this city a hundred and thirty thousand pied horses; each of
+which carried, by his order, a sack of earth to a place he had chosen.
+By this accumulation, an elevation was formed that commanded a view of
+all Samarah, and served for the foundation of his magnificent palace.
+Herbelot, p. 752, 808, 985.  Anecdotes Arabes, p. 413.
+
+{9}  _Houris_.  The Virgins of Paradise, called, from their large black
+eyes, _Hur al oyun_.  An intercourse with these, according to the
+institution of Mahomet, is to constitute the principal felicity of the
+faithful.  Not formed of clay, like mortal women, they are deemed in the
+highest degree beautiful, and exempt from every inconvenience incident to
+the sex.  Al Koran; passim.
+
+{10}  _Genii_.  Genn or Ginn, in the Arabic, signifies a Genius or
+Demon—a being of a higher order, and formed of more subtile matter than
+man.  According to Oriental mythology, the Genii governed the world long
+before the creation of Adam.  The Mahometans regarded them as an
+intermediate race between angels and men, and capable of salvation:
+whence Mahomet pretended a commission to convert them.  Consonant to
+this, we read that, “When the servant of God stood up to invoke him, it
+wanted little but that the Genii had pressed on him in crowds, to hear
+him rehearse the Koran.”  Herbelot, p. 357.  Al Koran ch. 72.
+
+{23}  _Accursed Giaour_.  Dives of this kind are frequently mentioned by
+Eastern writers.  Consult their tales in general, and especially those of
+“The Fisherman,” “Aladdin,” and “The Princess of China.”
+
+{26a}  _Bababalouk_, _the Chief of his Eunuchs_.  As it was the
+employment of the black eunuchs to wait upon, and guard the sultanas, to
+the general superintendence of the Harem was particularly committed to
+their chief.  Habesci’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 155–6.
+
+{26b}  _The Divan_.  This was both the supreme council, and court of
+justice, at which the Caliphs of the race of the Abassides assisted in
+person to redress the injuries of every appellant.  Herbelot, p. 298.
+
+{27}  _The Prime Vizier_.  Vazir, Vezir, or as we express it, Vizier,
+literally signifies a porter; and by metaphor, the minister who bears the
+principal burden of the state.
+
+{50}  _Gian Ben Gian_.  By this appellation was distinguished the monarch
+of that species of beings, whom the Arabians denominate _Gian_ or _Ginn_,
+that is, _Genii_; and the Tarik Thabari, _Peres_, _Feez_, or _Faeries_.
+
+{51}  _Rocnabad_.  The stream thus denominated flows near the city of
+Schiraz.  Its waters are uncommonly pure and limpid, and their banks
+swarded with the finest verdure.
+
+{53}  _Moullahs_.  Those among the Mahometans who were bred to the law
+had this title; and from their order the judges of cities and provinces
+were taken.
+
+{55}  _Bababalouk almost sunk with confusion_, _whilst_, _etc._  The
+heinousness of Vathek’s profanation can only be judged of by an orthodox
+Mussulman; or one who recollects the ablution and prayer indispensably
+required on the exoneration of nature.  Sale’s Prelim. Disc. p. 139.  Al
+Koran, ch. 4.  Habesci’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 93.
+
+{67a}  _Horrible Kaf_.  This mountain, which in reality is no other than
+Caucasus, was supposed to surround the earth, like a ring encompassing a
+finger.  The sun was believed to rise from one of its eminences (as over
+Octa, by the Latin poets) and to set on the opposite; whence “from Kaf to
+Kaf,” signified from one extremity of the earth to the other.
+
+{67b}  _The Simurgh_.  This is that wonderful bird of the East concerning
+which so many marvels are told.  It was not only endowed with reason, but
+possessed also the knowledge of every language.  This creature relates of
+itself, that it had seen the great revolution of seven thousand years,
+twelve times, commence and close; and, that in its duration, the world
+had been seven times void of inhabitants, and as often replenished.  The
+Simurgh is represented as a great friend to the race of Adam, and not
+less inimical to the Dives.
+
+{67c}  _Afrits_.  These were a kind of Medusa, or Lamia, supposed to be
+the most terrible and cruel of all the orders of the Dives.  Herbelot, p.
+66.
+
+{68}  _Deggial_.  This word signifies properly a liar and imposter, but
+is applied by Mahometan writers to their Antichrist.  He is described as
+having but one eye and eyebrow, and on his forehead the radicals of
+_cafer_, or infidel, are said to be impressed.
+
+{79a}  _Calenders_.  These were a sort of men amongst the Mahometans who
+abandoned father and mother, wife and children, relations and
+possessions, to wander through the world, under a pretence of religion,
+entirely subsisting on the fortuitous bounty of those they had the
+address to dupe.  Herbelot, Suppl. p. 204.
+
+{79b}  _Santons_.  A body of religionists who were also called _Abdals_,
+and pretended to be inspired with the most enthusiastic raptures of
+divine love.  They were regarded by the vulgar as saints.  Olearius, Tom.
+I. p. 971.  Herbelot, p. 5.
+
+{79c}  _Dervises_.  The term _dervise_ signifies a poor man, and is the
+general appellation by which a religious sect amongst the Mahometans is
+named.
+
+{79d}  _Brahmins_.  These constituted the principal caste of the Indians,
+according to whose doctrines Brahma, from whom they are called, is the
+first of the three created beings by whom the world was made.  This
+Brahma is said to have communicated to the Indians four books, in which
+all the sciences and ceremonies of their religion are comprised.
+
+{79e}  _Faquirs_.  This sect were a kind of religious anchorites, who
+spent their whole lives in the severest austerities and mortification.
+
+{82}  _Peries_.  The word Peri, in the Persian language, signifies that
+beautiful race of creatures which constitutes the link between angels and
+men.
+
+{134}  _Balkis_.  This was the Arabian name of the Queen of Sheba, who
+went from the South to hear the wisdom and admire the glory of Solomon.
+The Koran represents her as a worshipper of fire.  Solomon is said not
+only to have entertained her with the greatest magnificence, but also to
+have raised her to his bed and his throne.  Al Koran, ch. 27, and Sale’s
+notes.  Herbelot, p. 182.
+
+{140}  _Ouranabad_.  This monster is represented as a fierce flying
+hydra, and belongs to the same class with the _Rakshe_, whose ordinary
+food was serpents and dragons; the _Soham_, which had the head of a
+horse, with four eyes, and the body of a flame-coloured dragon; the
+_Syl_, a basilisk with a face resembling the human, but so tremendous
+that no mortal could bear to behold it; the _Ejder_, and others.  See
+these respective titles in Richardson’s Dictionary, Persian, Arabic and
+English.
+
+
+
+
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