’I cannot command you; and if you were, upon this occasion I would not.  I do not want a slave, but a friend; not merely a woman, but a wife.  If I find Almeida such as my fancy has feigned her; if her mind corresponds with her form; and if I have reason to think, that she can give her heart to Hamet, and not merely her hand to the king; I shall be happy.’  To this declaration, Abdallah replied with expressions of the profoundest submission and gratitude; and Hamet dismissed him, to prepare Almeida to receive him in the afternoon of the same day.

CHAP.  VII.

As eight moons only had passed since the death of Solyman, and as the reverence of Hamet for the memory of his father would not suffer him to marry till the year should be completed; he determined not to mention Almeida to his brother, till the time when he could marry her was near.  The fierce and haughty deportment of Almoran had now left Hamet no room to doubt of his character:  and though he had no apprehension that he would make any attempts upon Almeida, after she should be his wife; yet he did not know how much might justly be feared from his passion, if he should see her and become enamoured of her, while she was yet a virgin in the house of her father.

Almeida had not only unsullied purity of mind, but principles of refined and exalted virtue; and as the life of Hamet was an example of all that was either great or good, Abdallah felt no anxiety upon leaving them together, except what arose from his fears, that his daughter would not be able to secure the conquest she had made.

As it was impossible for Hamet to have such an acquaintance with Almeida as he desired, till he could enter into conversation with her upon terms of equality; it was his first care to sooth her into confidence and familiarity, and by degrees he succeeded:  he soon found, in the free intercourse of mind with mind, which he established instead of the implicit submission which only ecchoed his own voice, how little of the pleasure that women were formed to give can be enjoyed, when they are considered merely as slaves to a tyrant’s will, the passive subjects of transient dalliance and casual enjoyment.  The pleasure which he took in the youthful beauty of Almeida, was now endeared, exalted, and refined, by the tender sensibility of her heart, and by the reflexion of his own felicity from her eyes:  when he admired the gracefulness of her motion, the elegance of her figure, the symmetry of her features, and the bloom of her complexion, he considered them as the decorations only of a mind, capable of mixing with his own in the most exquisite delight, of reciprocating all his ideas, and catching new pleasure from his pleasure.  Desire was no longer appetite; it was imagination, it was reason; it included remembrance of the past, and anticipation of the future; and its object was not the sex, but Almeida.