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.