Thalaba,
What hast thou there?
THALABA.
A ring the dead man wore,
Perhaps my father, you can read its meaning.
MOATH.
No Boy,... the letters are not such as ours.
Heap the sand over it! a wicked man
Wears nothing holy.
THALABA.
Nay! not bury it!
It may be that some traveller who shall enter
Our tent, may read them: or if we approach
Cities where strangers dwell and learned men,
They may interpret.
MOATH.
It were better hid
Under the desert sands. This wretched man,
Whom God hath smitten in the very purpose
And impulse of his unpermitted crime,
Belike was some Magician, and these lines
Are of the language that the Demons use.
ONEIZA.