antly confirmed.' 'Take then,' said
HAMET, this unholy charm; and remove it far from me, as the sands of
Alai from the trees of Oman; lest, in some dreadful hour, my virtue may
fail me, and thy counsel may be wanting!' 'Give it me then,' said
ALMORAN; and feeling for the hands of each other, he snatched it from
him in an extasy of joy, and instantly resuming his own voice and
figure, he cried out, 'At length I have prevailed: and life and love,
dominion and revenge, are now at once in my hand!'

HAMET heard and knew the voice of his brother, with astonishment; but it
was too late to wish that he had withheld the charm, which his virtue
would not permit him to use. 'Yet a few moments pass,' said ALMORAN, and
thou art nothing.' HAMET, who doubted not of the power of the talisman,
and knew that ALMORAN had no principles which would restrain him from
using it to his destruction, resigned himself to death, with a sacred
joy that he had escaped from guilt. ALMORAN then, with an elation of
mind that sparkled in his eyes, and glowed upon his cheek, stretched out
his hand, in which he held the scroll; and a lamp of burning sulphur was
immediately suspended in the air before him: he held the mysterious
writing in the flame; and as it began to burn, the place shook with
reiterated thunder, of which every peal was more terrible and more
loud. HAMET, wrapping his robe round him, cried out, 'In the Fountain
of Life that flows for ever, let my life be mingled! Let me not be, as
if I had never been; but still conscious of my being, let me still
glorify Him from whom it is derived, and be still happy in his love!'

ALMORAN, who was absorbed in the anticipation of his own felicity, heard
the thunder without dread, as the proclamation of his triumph: 'Let thy
hopes,' said he, 'be thy portion; and the pleasures that I have secured,
shall be mine.' As he pronounced these words, he started as at a sudden
pang; his eyes became fixed, and his posture immoveable; yet his senses
still remained, and he perceived the Genius once more to stand before
him. 'ALMORAN,' said he, 'to the last sounds which thou shalt hear, let
thine ear be attentive! Of the spirits that rejoice to fulfill the
purpose of the Almighty, I am one. To HAMET, and to ALMORAN, I have been
commissioned from above: I have been appointed to perfect virtue, by
adversity; and in the folly of her own projects, to entangle vice. The
charm, which could be formed only by guilt, has power