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 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 attitude 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 passed 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.