Vathek; An Arabian Tale

by William Beckford

mystic visions, nothing morecould she see in her dreams than pieces of brocade, nosegays of flowers,and other unmeaning gewgaws. These disappointments had thrown her into astate of dejection which no drug in her power was sufficient to remove.Her only resource was in Morakanabad, who was a good man, and endowedwith a decent share of confidence, yet whilst in her company he neverthought himself on roses.

  No person knew aught of Vathek, and a thousand ridiculous stories werepropagated at his expense. The eagerness of Carathis may be easilyguessed at receiving the letter, as well as her rage at reading thedissolute conduct of her son.

  “Is it so,” said she; “either I will perish, or Vathek shall enter thepalace of fire. Let me expire in flames, provided he may reign on thethrone of Soliman!”

  Having said this, and whirled herself round in a magical manner, whichstruck Morakanabad with such terror as caused him to recoil, she orderedher great camel Alboufaki to be brought, and the hideous Nerkes with theunrelenting Cafour to attend.

  “I require no other retinue,” said she to Morakanabad: “I am going onaffairs of emergency, a truce therefore to parade! Take you care of thepeople, 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 plainof Catoul that would have deterred any other traveller however urgent thecall; but Carathis enjoyed most whatever filled others with dread.Nerkes concurred in opinion with her, and Cafour had a particularpredilection for a pestilence. In the morning this accomplished caravan,with the wood-fellers who directed their route, halted on the edge of anextensive marsh, from whence so noxious a vapour arose as would havedestroyed any animal but Alboufaki, who naturally inhaled these malignantfogs. The peasants entreated their convoy not to sleep in this place.

  “To sleep,” cried Carathis, “what an excellent thought! I never sleepbut for visions; and as to my attendants, their occupations are too manyto close the only eye they each have.”

  The poor peasants, who were not over pleased with their party, remainedopen-mouthed with surprise.

  Carathis alighted as well as her negresses, and severally stripping offtheir outer garments, they all ran in their drawers to cull from thosespots where the sun shone fiercest, the venomous plants that grew on themarsh. This provision was made for the family of the emir, and whoevermight retard the expedition to Istakar. The woodmen were overcome withfear when they beheld these three horrible phantoms run, and not muchrelishing the company of Alboufaki, stood aghast at the command ofCarathis to set forward, notwithstanding it was noon, and the heat fierceenough to calcine even rocks. In spite, however, of every remonstrance,they were forced implicitly to submit.

  Alboufaki, who delighted in solitude, constantly snorted whenever heperceived himself near a habitation, and Carathis, who was apt to spoilhim with indulgence, as constantly turned him aside; so that the peasantswere precluded from procuring subsistence; for the milch goats and eweswhich Providence had sent towards the district they traversed, to refreshtravellers with their milk, all fled at the sight of the hideous animaland his strange riders. As to Carathis, she needed no common aliment;for her invention had previously furnished her with an opiate to stay herstomach, some of which she imparted to her mutes.

  At the fall of night Alboufaki making a sudden stop, stamped with hisfoot, which to Carathis, who understood his paces, was a certainindication that she was near the confines of some cemetery. The moonshed a bright light on the spot, which served to discover a long wallwith a large door in it standing a-jar, and so high that Alboufaki mighteasily enter. The miserable guides, who perceived their end approaching,humbly implored Carathis, as she had now so good an opportunity, to interthem, and immediately gave up the ghost. Nerkes and Cafour, whose witwas of a style peculiar to themselves, were by no means parsimonious ofit on the folly of these poor people, nor could any thing have been foundmore suited to their taste than the site of the burying ground, and thesepulchres which its precincts contained. There were at least twothousand of them on the declivity of a hill; some in the form ofpyramids, others like columns, and in short the variety of their shapeswas endless. Carathis was too much immersed in her sublimecontemplations 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 forintelligence! having heedlessly suffered my guides to expire, I willapply for directions to them, and as an inducement, will invite them toregale on these fresh corpses.”

  After this short soliloquy, she beckoned to Nerkes and Cafour, and madesigns with her fingers, as much as to say:

  “Go, knock against the sides of the tombs, and strike up your delightfulwarblings, that are so like to those of the guests whose company I wishto obtain.”

  The negresses, full of joy at the behests of their mistress, andpromising themselves much pleasure from the society of the Gouls, wentwith an air of conquest, and began their knockings at the tombs. Astheir strokes were repeated, a hollow noise was heard in the earth, thesurface hove up into heaps, and the Gouls on all sides protruded theirnoses to inhale the effluvia which the carcasses of the woodmen began toemit.

  They assembled before a sarcophagus of white marble, where Carathis wasseated between the bodies of her miserable guides. The princess receivedher visitants with distinguished politeness, and when supper was ended,proceeded with them to business. Having soon learnt from them everything she wished to discover, it was her intention to set forwardforthwith on her journey, but her negresses, who were forming tenderconnections with the Gouls, importuned her with all their fingers towait, at least till the dawn. Carathis, however, being chastity in theabstract, and an implacable enemy to love and repose, at once rejectedtheir prayer, mounted Alboufaki, and commanded them to take their seatsin a moment. Four days and four nights she continued her route, withoutturning to the right hand or left; on the fifth she traversed themountains and half-burnt forests, and arrived on the sixth before thebeautiful screens which concealed from all eyes the voluptuous wanderingsof her son.

  It was day-break, and the guards were snoring on their posts in carelesssecurity, when the rough trot of Alboufaki awoke them in consternation.Imagining that a group of spectres ascended from the abyss wasapproaching, they all without ceremony took to their heels. Vathek wasat that instant with Nouronihar in the bath, hearing tales and laughingat Bababalouk who related them; but no sooner did the outcry of hisguards reach him, than he flounced from the water like a carp, and assoon threw himself back at the sight of Carathis, who advancing with hernegresses upon Alboufaki, broke through the muslin awnings and veils ofthe pavilion. At this sudden apparition Nouronihar (for she was not atall times free from remorse) fancied that the moment of celestialvengeance was come, and clung about the Caliph in amorous despondence.

  Carathis, still seated on her camel, foamed with indignation at thespectacle which obtruded itself on her chaste view. She thundered forthwithout check or mercy:

  “Thou double-headed and four legged monster! what means all this windingand writhing? art thou not ashamed to be seen grasping this limbersapling, in preference to the sceptre of the preadimite sultans? Is itthen for this paltry doxy that thou hast violated the conditions in theparchment of our Giaour? Is it on her thou hast lavished thy preciousmoments? Is this the fruit of the knowledge I have taught thee? Is thisthe end of thy journey? Tear thyself from the arms of this littlesimpleton; drown her in the water before me, and instantly follow myguidance.”

  In the first ebullition of his fury, Vathek resolved to make a skeletonof Alboufaki, and to stuff the skins of Carathis and her blacks; but theideas of the Giaour, the palace of Istakar, the sabres, and thetalismans, flashing before his imagination with the simultaneousness oflightning, he became more moderate, and said to his mother in a civil butdecisive tone:

  “Dread lady, you shal
l be obeyed; but I will not drown Nouronihar; she issweeter to me than a Myrabolan comfit, and is enamoured of carbuncles,especially that of Giamschid, which hath also been promised to beconferred upon her; she therefore shall go along with us, for I intend torepose with her beneath the canopies of Soliman; I can sleep no morewithout her.”

  “Be it so,” replied Carathis alighting, and at the same time committingAlboufaki to the charge of her women.

  Nouronihar, who had not yet quitted her hold, began to take courage, andsaid with an accent of fondness to the Caliph:

  “Dear sovereign of my soul! I will follow thee, if it be thy will beyondthe Kaf, in the land of the Afrits. I will not hesitate to climb forthee the nest of the Simurgh, who, this lady excepted, is the most awfulof created existences.”

  “We have here then,” subjoined Carathis, “a girl both of courage andscience.”

  Nouronihar had certainly both; but notwithstanding all her firmness, shecould not help casting back a look of regret upon the graces of herlittle