CHAP.  VI.

Though the night was far advanced, yet the eyes of Hamet were strangers to sleep:  his fancy incessantly repeated the events that had just happened; the image of Almeida was ever before him; and his breast throbbed with a disquietude, which, though it prevented rest, he did not wish to lose.

Almoran, in the mean time, was slumbering away the effects of his intemperance; and in the morning, when he was told what had happened, he expressed no passion but curiosity:  he went hastily into the garden; but when he had gazed upon the ruins, and enquired how the fire began, and what it had consumed, he thought of it no more.

But Hamet suffered nothing that regarded himself, to exclude others from his attention:  he went again to the ruins, not to gratify his curiosity, but to see what might yet be done to alleviate the misery of the sufferers, and secure for their use what had been preserved from the flames.  He found that no life had been lost, but that many persons had been hurt; to these he sent the physicians of his own houshold:  and having rewarded those who had assisted them in their distress, not forgetting even the soldiers who had only fulfilled his own orders, he returned, and applied himself to dispatch the public business in the chamber of council, with the same patient and diligent attention as if nothing had happened.  He had, indeed, ordered enquiry to be made after Almeida; and when he returned to his apartment, he found Abdallah waiting to express his gratitude for the obligations he had received.

Hamet accepted his acknowledgements with a peculiar pleasure, for they had some connexion with Almeida; after whom he again enquired, with an ardour uncommon even to the benevolence of Hamet.  When all his questions had been asked and answered, he appeared still unwilling to dismiss Abdallah, though he seemed at a loss how to detain him; he wanted to know, whether his daughter had yet received an offer of marriage, though he was unwilling to discover his desire by a direct enquiry:  but he soon found, that nothing could be known, which was not directly asked, from a man whom reverence and humility kept silent before him, except when something was said which amounted to a command to speak.  At length, however, he said, not without some hesitation, ’Is there no one, Abdallah, who will thank me for the preservation of thy daughter, with a zeal equal to thy own?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Abdallah, ’that daughter whom thou hast preserved.’  This reply, though it was unexpected was pleasing:  for Hamet was not only gratified to hear, that Almeida had expressed herself warmly in his behalf, at least as a benefactor; but he judged, that if any man had been interested in her life as a lover, the answer which Abdallah had given him would not so readily have occurred to his mind.