In
this sprightly humour they descended the eleven thousand stairs,
diverting themselves as they went at the anxious faces they saw on the
square through the oilets of the tower, and at length arrived at the
royal apartments by the subterranean passage. Bababalouk was parading to
and fro, and issuing his mandates with great pomp to the eunuchs, who
were snuffing the lights and painting the eyes of the Circassians. No
sooner did he catch sight of the Caliph and his mother than he exclaimed,
"Hah! you have then, I perceive, escaped from the flames; I was not,
however, altogether out of doubt."
"Of what moment is it to us what you thought, or think?" cried Carathis;
"go, speed, tell Morakanabad that we immediately want him; and take care
how you stop by the way to make your insipid reflections."
Morakanabad delayed not to obey the summons, and was received by Vathek
and his mother with great solemnity; they told him, with an air of
composure and commiseration, that the fire at the top of the tower was
extinguished; but that it had cost the lives of the brave people who
sought to assist them.
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