he flesh; in vain might the mind,
freed from the check of the soul, be left to roam at will through a
brain stored with memories of knowledge and skilled in the command of
its faculties; in vain, in addition to all that body and brain bestow on
the normal condition of man, might unhallowed reminiscences gather all
the arts and the charms of the sorcery by which the fiends tempted the
soul, before it fled, through the passions of flesh and the cravings of
mind: the Thing, thus devoid of a soul, would be an instrument of evil,
doubtless,--but an instrument that of itself could not design, invent,
and complete. The demons themselves could have no permanent hold on
the perishable materials. They might enter it for some gloomy end which
Allah permits in his inscrutable wisdom; but they could leave it no
trace when they pass from it, because there is no conscience where
soul is wanting. The human animal without soul, but otherwise made
felicitously perfect in its mere vital organization, might ravage and
destroy, as the tiger and the serpent may destroy and ravage, and,
the moment after, would sport in the sunlight harmless and rejoicing,
because, like the serpent and the tiger, it is incapable of remorse."

"Why startle my wonder," said Derval, "with so fantastic an image?"

"Because, possibly, the image may come into palpable form! I know, while
I speak to thee, that this miserable man is calling to his aid the evil
sorcery over which he boasts his control. To gain the end he desires, he
must pass through a crime. Sorcery whispers to him how to pass
through it, secure from the detection of man. The soul resists, but
in resisting, is weak against the tyranny of the mind to which it has
submitted so long. Question me no more. But if I vanish from thine eyes,
if thou hear that the death which, to my sorrow and in my foolishness I
have failed to recognize as the merciful minister of Heaven, has removed
me at last from the earth, believe that the pale Visitant was welcome,
and that I humbly accept as a blessed release the lot of our common
humanity."

Sir Philip went to Damascus. There he found the pestilence raging, there
he devoted himself to the cure of the afflicted; in no single instance,
so at least he declared, did the antidotes stored in the casket fail in
their effect. The pestilence had passed, his medicaments were exhausted,
when the news reached him that Haroun was no more. The Sage had been
found, one morning, lif