Almoran and Hamet Part 6

ALMORAN, though he was still impatient to hear of HAMET; and discovered, that if he was dead, his death was unknown to Caled; was yet notwithstanding rejoiced at what he heard: and as he knew what Caled told him to be true, as the conversation he related had pa.s.sed between himself and HAMET, he exulted in the pleasing confidence that he had yet a friend; the glooms of suspicion, which had involved his mind, were dissipated, and his countenance brightened with complacency and joy. He had delayed to put Osmyn to death, only because he could appoint no man to succeed him, of whom his fears did not render him equally suspicious: but having now found, in Caled, a friend, whose fidelity had been approved when there had been no intention to try it; and being impatient to reward his zeal, and to invest his fidelity with that power, which would render his services most important; he took a ring from his own finger, and putting it upon that of Caled, 'Take this,' said he, 'as a pledge, that to-morrow Osmyn shall lose his head; and that, from this moment, thou art invested with his power.'

Caled having, in the conversation between ALMORAN and HAMET, discerned indubitable treachery, which he imputed to Osmyn whose appearance ALMORAN had then a.s.sumed, eagerly seized the opportunity to destroy him; he, therefore, not trusting to the event of his accusation, had mingled poison in the bowl which he presented to ALMORAN when he came out from HAMET: this, however, at first he had resolved to conceal.

In consequence of his accusation, he supposed Osmyn would be questioned upon the rack; he supposed also, that the accusation, as it was true, would be confirmed by his confession; that what ever he should then say to the prejudice of his accuser, would be disbelieved; and that when after a few hours the poison should take effect, no inquisition would be made into the death of a criminal, whom the bow-string or the scimitar would otherwise have been employed to destroy. But he now hoped to derive new merit from an act of zeal, which ALMORAN had approved before it was known, by condemning his rival to die, whose death he had already insured: 'May the wishes of my lord,' said he, 'be always antic.i.p.ated; and may it be found, that whatever he ordains is already done: may he accept the zeal of his servant, whom he has delighted to honour; for, before the light of the morning shall return, the eyes of Osmyn shall close in everlasting darkness.'

At these words, the countenance of ALMORAN changed; his cheeks became pale, and his lips trembled: 'What then,' said he, 'hast thou done?'

Caled, who was terrified and astonished, threw himself upon the ground, and was unable to reply. ALMORAN, who now, by the utmost effort of his mind, restrained his confusion and his fear, that he might learn the truth from Caled without dissimulation or disguise, raised him from the ground and repeated his enquiry. 'If I have erred,' said Caled, 'impute it not: when I had detected the treachery of Osmyn, I was transported by my zeal for thee. For proof that he is guilty, I appeal now to himself; for he yet lives: but that he might not escape the hand of justice, I mingled, in the bowl I give him, the drugs of death.'

At these words, ALMORAN, striking his hands together, looked upward in an agony of despair and horror, and fell back upon a sofa that was behind him. Caled, whose astonishment was equal to his disappointment and his fears, approached him with a trembling though hasty pace; but as he stooped to support him, ALMORAN suddenly drew his dagger and stabbed him to the heart; and repeated the blow with reproaches and execrations, till his strength failed him.

In this dreadful moment, the Genius once more appeared before him; at the sight of whom he waved his hand, but was unable to speak. 'Nothing,'

said the Genius, 'that has happened to ALMORAN, is hidden from me. Thy peace has been destroyed alike by the defection of Osmyn, and by the zeal of Caled: thy life may yet be preserved; but it can be preserved only by a charm, which HAMET must apply.' ALMORAN, who had raised his eyes, and conceived some languid hope, when he heard that he might yet live; cast them again down in despair, when he heard that he could receive life only from HAMET. 'From HAMET,' said he, 'I have already taken the power to save me; I have, by thy counsel, given him the instrument of death, which, by thy counsel also, I urged him to use: he received it with joy, and he is now doubtless numbered with the dead.'

'HAMET,' said the Genius, 'is not dead; but from the fountain of virtue he drinks life and peace. If what I shall propose, he refuses to perform, not all the powers of earth, and sea, and air, if they should combine, can give thee life: but if he complies, the death, that is now suspended over thee, shall fall upon his head; and thy life shall be again delivered to the hand of time.' 'Make haste then,' said ALMORAN, 'and I will here wait the event.' 'The event,' said the Genius, 'is not distant; and it is the last experiment which my power can make, either upon him or thee: when the star of the night, that is now near the horizon, shall set, I will be with him.'

When ALMORAN was alone, he reflected, that every act of supernatural power which the Genius had enabled him to perform, had brought upon him some new calamity, though it always promised him some new advantage. As he would not impute this disappointment to the purposes for which he employed the power that he had received, he indulged a suspicion, that it proceeded from the perfidy of the Being by whom it was bestowed; in his mind, therefore, he thus reasoned with himself: 'The Genius, who has pretended to be the friend of ALMORAN, has been secretly in confederacy with HAMET: why else do I yet sigh in vain for ALMEIDA? and why else did not HAMET perish, when his life was in my power? By his counsel, I persuaded HAMET to destroy himself; and, in the very act, I was betrayed to drink the potion, by which I shall be destroyed: I have been led on, from misery to misery, by ineffectual expedients, and fallacious hopes.

In this crisis of my fate, I will not trust, with implicit confidence, in another: I will be present at the interview of this powerful, but suspected Being, with HAMET; and who can tell, but that if I detect a fraud, I may be able to disappoint it: however powerful, he is not omniscient; I may, therefore, be present, unknown and unsuspected even by him, in a form that I can chuse by a thought, to which he cannot be conscious.'

CHAP. XIX.

In consequence of this resolution, ALMORAN, having commanded one of the soldiers of the guard that attended upon HAMET into an inner room of the palace, he ordered him to wait there till his return: then making fast the door, he a.s.sumed his figure, and went immediately to the dungeon; where producing his signet, he said, he had received orders from the king to remain with the prisoner, till the watch expired.

As he entered without speaking, and without a light, HAMET continued stretched upon the ground, with his face towards the earth; and ALMORAN, having silently retired to a remote corner of the place, waited for the appearance of the Genius.

The dawn of the morning now broke; and, in a few minutes, the prison shook, and the Genius appeared. He was visible by a lambent light that played around him; and HAMET starting from the ground, turned to the vision with reverence and wonder: but as the Omnipotent was ever present to his mind, to whom all beings in all worlds are obedient, and on whom alone he relied for protection, he was neither confused nor afraid.

'HAMET,' said the Genius, 'the crisis of thy fate is near.' 'Who art thou,' said HAMET, and for what purpose art thou come?' 'I am,' replied the Genius, 'an inhabitant of the world above thee; and to the will of thy brother, my powers have been obedient: upon him they have not conferred happiness, but they have brought evil upon thee. It was my voice, that forbad thy marriage with ALMEIDA; and my voice, that decreed the throne to ALMORAN: I gave him the power to a.s.sume thy form; and, by me, the hand of oppression is now heavy upon thee. Yet I have not decreed, that he should be happy, nor that thou shouldst be wretched: darkness as yet rests upon my purpose; but my heart in secret is thy friend.' 'If thou art, indeed my friend,' said HAMET, 'deliver me from this prison; and preserve HAMET for ALMEIDA.' Thy deliverance,' said the Genius, must depend upon thyself. There is a charm, of which the power is great; but it is by thy will only, that this power can be exerted.'

The Genius then held out towards him a scroll, on which the seal of seven powers was impressed. 'Take, said he, 'this scroll, in which the mysterious name of Orosmades is written. Invoke the spirits, that reside westward from the rising of the sun; and northward, in the regions of cold and darkness: then stretch out thy hand, and a lamp of sulphur, self kindled, shall burn before thee. In the fire of this lamp, consume that which I now give thee; and as the smoke, into which it changes, shall mix with the air, a mighty charm shall be formed, which shall defend thee from all mischief: from that instant no poison, however potent, can hurt thee; nor shall any prison confine: in one moment, thou shalt be restored to the throne, and to ALMEIDA; and the Angel of death, shall lay his hand upon thy brother; to whom, if I had confided this last best effort of my power, he would have secured the good to himself, and have transferred the evil to thee.'

ALMORAN, who had listened unseen to this address of the Genius to HAMET, was now confirmed in his suspicions, that evil had been ultimately intended against him; and that he had been entangled in the toils of perfidy, while he believed himself to be a.s.sisted by the efforts of friendship: he was also convinced, that by the Genius he was not known to be present. HAMET, however, flood still doubtful, and ALMORAN was kept silent by his fears. 'Whoever thou art,' said HAMET, the condition of the advantages which thou hast offered me, is such as it is not lawful to fulfill: these horrid rites, and this commerce with unholy powers, are prohibited to mortals in the Law of life.' 'See thou to that,' said the Genius: 'Good and evil are before thee; that which I now offer thee, I will offer no more.'

HAMET, who had not fort.i.tude to give up at once the possibility of securing the advantages that had been offered, and who was seduced by human frailty to deliberate at least upon the choice; stretched out his hand, and receiving the scroll, the Genius instantly disappeared. That which had been proposed as a trial of his virtue, ALMORAN believed indeed to be an offer of advantage; he had no hope, therefore, but that HAMET would refuse the conditions, and that he should be able to obtain the talisman, and fulfill them himself: he judged that the mind of HAMET was in suspense, and was doubtful to which side it might finally incline; he, therefore, instantly a.s.sumed the voice and the person of OMAR, that by the influence of his council he might be able to turn the scale.

When the change was effected, he called HAMET by his name; and HAMET, who knew the voice, answered him in a transport of joy and wonder: 'My friend,' said he, 'my father! in this dreary solitude, in this hour of trial, thou art welcome to my soul as liberty and life! Guide me to thee by thy voice; and tell while I hold thee to my bosom, how and wherefore thou art come?' 'Do not now ask me,' said ALMORAN: 'it is enough that I am here; and that I am permitted to warn thee of the precipice, on which thou standest. It is enough, that concealed in this darkness, I have overheard the specious guile, which some evil demon has practised upon thee.' 'Is it then certain,' said HAMET, 'that this being is evil?' 'Is not that being evil, said ALMORAN,' 'who proposes evil, as the condition of good?' 'Shall I then,' said HAMET, 'renounce my liberty and life? The rack is now ready; and, perhaps, the next moment, its tortures will be inevitable.' 'Let me ask thee then,' said ALMORAN, 'to preserve thy life, wilt thou destroy thy soul?' 'O! stay,' said HAMET--'Let me not be tried too far! Let the strength of Him who is Almighty, be manifest in my weakness!' HAMET then paused a few moments; but he was no longer in doubt: and ALMORAN, who disbelieved and despised the arguments, by which he intended to persuade him to renounce what, upon the same condition, he was impatient to secure for himself, conceived hopes that he should succeed; and those hopes were instantly 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.s,' 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 only to produce misery: of every good, which thou, ALMORAN, wouldst have secured by disobedience, the opposite evil is thy portion; and of every evil, which thou, HAMET, wast, by Obedience, willing to incur, the opposite good is bestowed upon thee. To thee, HAMET, are now given the throne of thy father, and ALMEIDA. And thou, ALMORAN, who, while I speak, art incorporating with the earth, shalt remain, through all generations, a memorial of the truths which thy life has taught!'

At the words of the Genius, the earth trembled beneath, and above the walls of the prison disappeared: the figure of ALMORAN, which was hardened into stone, expanded by degrees; and a rock, by which his form and att.i.tude are still rudely expressed, became at once a monument of his punishment and his guilt.

Such are the events recorded by ACMET, the descendant of the Prophet, and the preacher of righteousness! for, to ACMET, that which pa.s.sed in secret was revealed by the Angel of instruction, that the world might know, that, to the wicked, increase of power is increase of wretchedness; and that those who condemn the folly of an attempt to defeat the purpose of a Genius, might no longer hope to elude the appointment of the Most High.