“Dread lady, you shall be obeyed; but I will not drown Nouronihar; she is sweeter to me than a Myrabolan comfit, and is enamoured of carbuncles, especially that of Giamschid, which hath also been promised to be conferred upon her; she therefore shall go along with us, for I intend to repose with her beneath the canopies of Soliman; I can sleep no more without her.” “Be it so,” replied Carathis alighting, and at the same time committing Alboufaki to the charge of her women. Nouronihar, who had not yet quitted her hold, began to take courage, and said with an accent of fondness to the Caliph: “Dear sovereign of my soul! I will follow thee, if it be thy will beyond the Kaf, in the land of the Afrits. I will not hesitate to climb for thee the nest of the Simurgh, who, this lady excepted, is the most awful of created existences.” “We have here then,” subjoined Carathis, “a girl both of courage and science.” Nouronihar had certainly both; but notwithstanding all her firmness, she could not help casting back a look of regret upon the graces of her little Gulchenrouz, and the days of tenderness she had participated with him. She even dropped a few tears, which Carathis observed, and inadvertently breathed out with a sigh: “Alas! my gentle cousin, what will become of him!” Vathek at this apostrophe knitted up his brows, and Carathis enquired what it could mean. “She is preposterously sighing after a stripling with languishing eyes and soft hair who loves her,” said the Caliph. “Where is he?” asked Carathis. “I must be acquainted with this pretty child; for,” added she, lowering her voice, “I design before I depart to regain the favour of the Giaour. There is nothing so delicious in his estimation as the heart of a delicate boy, palpitating with the first tumults of love.” Vathek as he came from the bath commanded Bababalouk to collect the women and other moveables of his harem, embody his troops, and hold himself in readiness to march in three days; whilst Carathis retired alone to a tent, where the Giaour solaced her with encouraging visions; but at length waking, she found at her feet Nerkes and Cafour, who informed her by their signs, that having led Alboufaki to the borders of a lake, to browse on some moss that looked tolerably venomous, they had discovered certain blue fishes of the same kind with those in the reservoir on the top of the tower. “Ah, ah,” said she, “I will go thither to them. These fish are past doubt of a species that by a small operation I can render oracular. They may tell me where this little Gulchenrouz is, whom I am bent upon sacrificing.” Having thus spoken, she immediately set out with her swarthy retinue.