forest, is driven over the mountain with unabated rage: but from the
mountain, what can it take more than the vegetable dust, which the hand
of nature has scattered upon the moss that covers it? As the dust is to
the mountain, so is all that the storms of life can take from virtue, to
the sum of good which the Omnipotent has appointed for its reward.'
HAMET, whose eye now expressed a kind of doubtful confidence, a hope
that was repressed by fear, remained still silent; and OMAR, perceiving
the state of his mind, proceeded to fortify it by new precepts: 'If
heaven,' said he, 'should vanish like a vapour, and this firm orb of
earth should crumble into dust, the virtuous mind would stand unmoved
amidst the ruins of nature: for He, who has appointed the heavens and
the earth to fail, has said to virtue, "Fear not; for thou canst neither
perish, nor be wretched." Call up thy strength, therefore, to the fight
in which thou art sure of conquest: do thou only that which is RIGHT,
and leave the event to Heaven.'

HAMET, in this conference with OMAR, having gradually recovered his
fortitude; and the time being now near, when he was to conduct ALMEIDA
to the court of the palace, where the marriage ceremony was to be
performed; they parted with mutual benedictions, each recommending the
other to the protection of the Most High.

At the appointed hour, the princes of the court being assembled, the
mufti and the imans being ready, and ALMORAN seated upon his throne;
HAMET and ALMEIDA came forward, and were placed one on the right hand,
and the other on the left. The mufti was then advancing, to hear and to
record the mutual promise which was to unite them; ALMORAN was
execrating the appearance of the Genius, as a delusive dream, in all the
tumults of anguish and despair; and HAMET began to hope, that the
suspicions of OMAR had been ill founded; when a stroke of thunder shook