ABSTRACT
From this point of the drama, the author’s intentions are not quite clear. Impelled, as it would seem, by a wish to prove her faith in Djabal’s mission, and do something in testimony of her attachment to his supernatural character, Anael with her own hand stabs the Prefect —a portion of the plot which the pretending Khalif had reserved for himself. Djabal finds her with the blood upon her hand; and then, in the excitement of the moment, comes a confession of his imposture. Then we have Anael’s struggle between the sense of his degradation and the joy of his restoration to the level of her woman’s heart; and, urging him to make confession to the people on whom he has imposed, she offers to share his shame. Djabal, however, refuses to abandon his deception till its object shall have been achieved; and Anael, therefore, denounces his fraud,—with what object we can only conjecture from what follows. Called upon by his own adherents to show his power upon the unknown blasphemer of that power, he is confronted with Anael, who is brought in veiled: and who, on the veil being removed, hails him, before them all, as Hakeem, and falls dead! Why, or by what instrument, she dies, is no way explained. The presumption seems to be, that her denunciation had been made with the view of confirming his authority, by seeming, afterwards, to perish before his eyes, the victim of her own sacrilege,—and that she had previously secured the means of her unexplained death. If this be not the author’s meaning, we have no clue to what is. If it be, the catastrophe is managed in a manner bungling and obscure,—and might readily be mended. The end of all is, that Djabal, retaining his character of Hakeem, thus awfully confirmed, but announcing his mission as ended, delegates the ‘leading home’ to Khalil, under the escort of the good Knight Loys, and the protection of the Venetians; and, advancing at their head a few steps, on the way back to the Cedars, falls dead before their eyes,—supposed, of course, to have fulfilled the tradition, and returned to his slumber of ages!
