evious acquaintance; she even attempted to
dethrone one of the Solimans for the purpose of usurping his place, when
a voice, proceeding from the abyss of Death, proclaimed, "All is
accomplished!" Instantaneously the haughty forehead of the intrepid
princess was corrugated with agony; she uttered a tremendous yell, and
fixed, no more to be withdrawn, her right hand upon her heart, which was
become a receptacle of eternal fire.

In this delirium, forgetting all ambitious projects and her thirst for
that knowledge which should ever be hidden from mortals, she overturned
the offerings of the Genii, and, having execrated the hour she was
begotten and the womb that had borne her, glanced off in a whirl that
rendered her invisible, and continued to revolve without intermission.

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
aught in his but aversion and despair. The two princes who were friends,
and till that moment had preserved their attachment, shrank 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
that 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, had 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