The Caliph, nevertheless, remained in the most violent agitation; he sat
down indeed to eat, but of the three hundred covers that were daily
placed before him could taste of no more than thirty-two. A diet to
which he had been so little accustomed was sufficient of itself to
prevent him from sleeping; what then must be its effect when joined to
the anxiety that preyed upon his spirits? At the first glimpse of dawn
he hastened to the prison, again to importune this intractable stranger;
but the rage of Vathek exceeded all bounds on finding the prison empty,
the gates burst asunder, and his guards lying lifeless around him. In
the paroxysm of his passion he fell furiously on the poor carcases, and
kicked them till evening without intermission. His courtiers and vizirs
exerted their efforts to soothe his extravagance, but finding every
expedient ineffectual, they all united in 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