e 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 beehives. He now 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 pain of displeasure, should
either lodge or detain a traveller, but forthwith bring him to the
palace.

Not long after this there arrived in the city a hideous man who to
Vathek's view displayed slippers which enabled the feet to walk, knives
that cut without a motion of the hand, and sabres which dealt the blow
at the person they were wished to strike, 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; but, having maintained an obstinate silence on all the points
on which the caliph questioned him, he was committed to prison, from
which he was found the next day to have vanished, leaving his keepers
dead.

Vathek was at first enraged, but having been comforted by his mother,
the Princess Carathis, who was a Greek and an adept in all the sciences
and systems of her country, he issued, at her suggestion, a proclamation
promising the liberality for which he was renowned to whoever should
decipher the characters on the sabres, and eventually had the
gratification of meeting with an old man, who read them 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." Unfortunately, however, when the old man was
ordered the next morning to re-read the inscription, he was then found
to interpret it as denouncing: "