neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the infinities of
space."

"Mysterious man!" said Boabdil; "whence, then, is thy power?--whence thy
knowledge of the future?"

Almamen approached the king, as he now stood by the open balcony.

"Behold!" said he, pointing to the waters of the Darro--"yonder stream is
of an element in which man cannot live nor breathe: above, in the thin
and impalpable air, our steps cannot find a footing, the armies of all
earth cannot build an empire. And yet, by the exercise of a little art,
the fishes and the birds, the inhabitants of the air and the water,
minister to our most humble wants, the most common of our enjoyments; so
it is with the true science of enchantment. Thinkest thou that, while
the petty surface of the world is crowded with living things, there is no
life in the vast centre within the earth, and the immense ether that
surrounds it? As the fisherman snares his prey, as the fowler entraps
the bird, so, by the art and genius of our human mind, we may thrall and
command the subtler beings of realms and elements which our material
bodies cannot enter--our gross senses cannot survey. This, then, is my
lore. Of other worlds know I nought; but of the things of this world,
whether men, or, as your legends term them, ghouls and genii, I have
learned something. To the future, I myself am blind; but I can invoke
and conjure up those whose eyes are more piercing, whose natures are more
gifted."

"Prove to me thy power," said Boabdil, awed less by the words than by the
thrilling voice and the impressive aspect of the enchanter.