Note Page 219 — VATHEK: AN ARABIAN TALE BY WILLIAM BECKFORD (continued 2)

Scarcely were they gone, when, instead of the pile, horns, mummies, and ashes, the caliph both saw and felt, with a degree of pleasure which he could not express, a table covered with the most magnificent repast: flagons of wine and vases of exquisite sherbet reposing on snow.* He availed himself, without scruple, of such an entertainment; and had already laid hands on a lamb stuffed with pistachios, whilst Carathis was privately drawing from a filigree urn a parchment* that seemed to be endless, and which had escaped the notice of her son. Totally occupied in gratifying an importunate appetite, he left her to peruse it without interruption; which having finished, she said to him, in an authoritative tone, “Put an end to your gluttony, and hear the splendid promises with which you are favoured!” She then read as follows: “Vathek, my well-beloved, thou hast surpassed my hopes: my nostrils have been regaled by the savour of thy mummies, thy horns, and, still more, by the lives devoted on the pile. At the full of the moon, cause the bands of thy musicians, and thy timbals, to be heard; depart from thy palace, surrounded by all the pageants of majesty—thy most faithful slaves, thy best beloved wives, thy most magnificent litters, thy richest loaden camels—and set forward on thy way to Istakhar.* There I await thy coming: that is the region of wonders: there shalt thou receive the diadem of Gian Ben Gian,* the talismans of Soliman,* and the treasures of the pre-Adamite sultans:* there shalt thou be solaced with all kinds of delight.—But beware how thou enterest any dwelling* on thy route; or thou shalt feel the effects of my anger.”