Note Page 197 — VATHEK: AN ARABIAN TALE BY WILLIAM BECKFORD (continued 2)

The great prophet, Mahomet, whose vicars the caliphs are, beheld with indignation from his abode in the seventh heaven* the irreligious conduct of such a vicegerent. “Let us leave him to himself,” said he to the Genii,* who are always ready to receive his commands: “let us see to what lengths his folly and impiety will carry him: if he run into excess, we shall know how to chastise him. Assist him, therefore, to complete the tower* which, in imitation of Nimrod, he hath begun; not, like that great warrior, to escape being drowned, but from the insolent curiosity of penetrating the secrets of heaven:—he will not divine the fate that awaits him.”