The History of Caliph Vathek by William Beckford (recommended ebook reader .txt) 📖

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 daybreak, 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 pre-adamite 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 inquired 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 movables 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! ha!” 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, and 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 figtree 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 Allah 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 eyelids.  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 peacable society, his days, months, and years glided on; nor was he less happy than the rest of his companions; for the Genius, instead of burthening 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 hailstones in the faces of the assailants, and shafts of red-hot iron on their heads; I will spring mines of serpents and torpedos from beneath them, and we shall soon see the stand they will make against such an explosion!”

Having thus spoken, Carathis hastened 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 signalise 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 ate 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