crowned skeleton, and before him glowed
the magic dial-plate of which he had spoken in his interview with Muza.

"Oh, dread and awful image!" cried the king, throwing himself on his
knees before the skeleton,--"shadow of what was once a king, wise in
council, and terrible in war, if in those hollow bones yet lurks the
impalpable and unseen spirit, hear thy repentant son. Forgive, while
it is yet time, the rebellion of his fiery youth, and suffer thy daring
soul to animate the doubt and weakness of his own. I go forth to battle,
waiting not the signal thou didst ordain. Let not the penance for a
rashness, to which fate urges me on, attach to my country, but to me.
And if I perish in the field, may my evil destinies be buried with me,
and a worthier monarch redeem my errors and preserve Granada!"

As the king raised his looks, the unrelaxed grin of the grim dead, made
yet more hideous by the mockery of the diadem and the royal robe, froze
back to ice the passion and sorrow at his heart. He shuddered, and rose
with a deep sigh; when, as his eyes mechanically followed the lifted arm
of the skeleton, he beheld, with mingled delight and awe, the hitherto
motionless finger of the dial-plate pass slowly on, and rest at the word
so long and so impatiently desired. "ARM!" cried the king; "do I read
aright?--are my prayers heard?" A low and deep sound, like that of
subterranean thunder, boomed through the chamber; and in the same
instant the wall opened, and the king beheld the long-expected figure of
Almamen, the magician. But no longer was that stately form clad in the
loose and peaceful garb of the Eastern santon. Complete armour cased his
broad chest and sinewy limbs; his head alone was bare, and his prominent
and impressive features were lighted, not with mystical enthusiasm, but
with warlike energy. In his right hand, he carried a drawn sword--his
left supported the staff of a snow-white and dazzling banner.

So sudden was the apparition, and so excited the mind of the king, that
the sight of a supernatural being could scarcely have impressed him with
more amaze and awe.

"King of Granada," said Almamen, "the hour hath come at last; go forth
and conquer! With the Christian monarch, there is no hope of peace or
compact. At thy request I sought him, but my spells alone preserved the
life of thy herald. Rejoice! for thine evil destinies have rolled away
from thy spirit, like a cloud from the glory of the sun. The genii of
t