At almost the same instant, the same voice announced to the Caliph, Nouronihar, the five princes, and the princess, the awful and irrevocable decree. Their hearts immediately took fire, and they at once lost the most precious of the gifts of heaven—HOPE. These unhappy beings recoiled, with looks of the most furious distraction. Vathek beheld in the eyes of Nouronihar nothing but rage and vengeance; nor could she discern ought in his but aversion and despair. The two princes who were friends, and till that moment had preserved their attachment, shrunk back, gnashing their teeth with mutual and unchangeable hatred. Kalilah and his sister made reciprocal gestures of imprecation; whilst the two other princes testified their horror for each other by the most ghastly convulsions, and screams that could not be smothered. All severally plunged themselves into the accursed multitude, there to wander in an eternity of unabating anguish. Such was, and such should be, the punishment of unrestrained passions, and atrocious actions. Such is, and such should be, the chastisement of blind ambition, that would transgress those bounds which the Creator hath prescribed to human knowledge, and by aiming at discoveries reserved for pure intelligence, acquire that infatuated pride, which perceives not the condition appointed to man is, TO BE IGNORANT AND HUMBLE. Thus the CALIPH VATHEK who, for the sake of empty pomp and forbidden power, hath sullied himself with a thousand crimes, became a prey to grief without end, and remorse without mitigation; whilst the humble and despised GULCHENROUZ passed whole ages in undisturbed tranquillity, and the pure happiness of childhood. NOTES. {7a} _Caliph_. This title amongst the Mahometans comprehends the concrete character of prophet, priest, and king; and is used to signify _the Vicar of God on earth_.—Habesci’s State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 9. Herbelot, p. 985. {7b} _One of his eyes became so terrible_. The author of Nighiaristan hath preserved a fact that supports this account; and there is no history of Vathek, in which his _terrible eye_ is not mentioned. {8a} _Omar Ben Abdalaziz_. This Caliph was eminent above all others for temperance and self-denial; insomuch, that he is believed to have been raised to Mahomet’s bosom, as a reward for his abstinence in an age of corruption. Herbelot, p. 690.