hour.

Carathis, alarmed at the signs of her mutes, advanced to the staircase,
went down a few steps, and heard several voices calling out from below:
"You shall in a moment have water!" Being rather alert, considering her
age, she presently regained the top of the tower, and bade her son
suspend the sacrifice for some minutes, adding: "We shall soon be enabled
to render it more grateful; certain dolts of your subjects, imagining no
doubt that we were on fire, have been rash enough to break through those
doors which had hitherto remained inviolate, for the sake of bringing up
water; they are very kind, you must allow, so soon to forget the wrongs
you have done them, but that is of little moment. Let us offer them to
the Giaour; let them come up; our mutes, who neither want strength nor
experience, will soon despatch them, exhausted as they are with fatigue."

"Be it so," answered the Caliph, "provided we finish and I dine."

In fact, these good people, out of breath from ascending eleven thousand
stairs in such haste, and chagrined at having spilt by the way the water
they had taken, were no sooner arrived at the top than the blaze of the
flames and the fumes of the mummies at once overpowered their senses. It
was a pity; for they beheld not the agreeable smile with which the mutes
and the negresses adjusted the cord to their necks; these amiable
personages rejoiced, however, no less at the scene; never before had the
ceremony of strangling been performed with so much facility; they all
fell without the least resistance or struggle, so that Vathek in the
space of a few moments found himself surrounded by the dead bodies of his
faithfullest subjects, all which were thrown on the top of the pile.

Carathis, whose presence of mind never forsook her, perceiving that she
had carcases sufficient to complete her oblation, commanded the chains to
be stretched across the staircase, and the iron doors barricaded, that no
more might come up.

No sooner were these orders obeyed than the tower shook, the dead bodies
vanished in the flames, which at once changed from a swarthy crimson to a
bright rose colour; an ambient vapour emitted the most exquisite
fragrance, the marble columns rang with harmonious sounds, and the
liquefied horns diffused a delicious perfume. Carathis, in transports,
anticipated the success of her enterprise, whilst her mutes and
negresses, to whom these sweets had given the colic, retired to their
cells