Vathek

Vathek takes shelter with Carathis in her tower full of scientific inventions and magical artifacts. Carathis also desires the wealth and knowledge the Stranger promised, and she protects Vathek, using her eloquence and intelligence to persuade the angry crowd that has followed him to leave. Retreating to her rooms, where she has collected magical objects and studied “infernal powers,” she plots to regain the favor of the Stranger and passage into the infernal palace.

Carathis has been looking forward to contacting dark powers and has prepared her entire tower for the possibility, including one chamber in particular:

[There], under the guard of 50 female negroes mute and blind of the right eye, were preserved the oil of the most venomous serpents; rhinoceros’ horns; and woods of a subtile and penetrating odour, procured from the interior of the Indies, together with a thousand other horrible rarities (31).

Carathis gathers many items from this room to use in a dark ritual.

Vathek, meanwhile, shows no remorse for his actions on the cliffside. Instead, he has become ravenously hungry and calls for food. He grows enraged when the guards do not respond, having forgotten that, as they are deaf, they cannot hear his demands.