This, indeed, was the dreadful fate of Vathek and Nouronihar, a fate
indeed to which the Princess Carathis was also most righteously
condemned; for Vathek, knowing that the principles by which his mother
had perverted his youth had been the cause of his perdition, summoned
her to the palace of subterranean fire and enrolled her among the
votaries of Eblis. Carathis entered the dome of Soliman, and she too
marched in triumph through the vapour of perfumes.

* * * * *




APHRA BEHN


Oroonoko: the Royal Slave

In her introduction to "Oroonoko," Mrs. Aphra Behn states
that her strange and romantic tale is founded on facts, of
many of which she was an eye-witness. This is true. She was
born at Wye, England, July 10, 1640, the daughter, it is said,
of a barber. As a child, she went out to Dutch Guiana, then an
English colony named after the Surinam River, returning to
England about 1658. After the death of her husband, in 1666,
she was dispatched as a spy to Antwerp by Charles II., and it
was she who first warned that monarch of the Dutch
Government's intention to send a fleet up the Thames. She died
on April 16, 1689, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. It was