one vociferation: "The Caliph
is gone mad! the Caliph is out of his senses!"

This outcry, which soon resounded through the streets of Samarah, at
length reaching 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 as 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 lan