she had reason to expect from some sudden sally of the tyrant’s rage, and related with tears the brutal outrage she had suffered when he last left her.  ‘Though I abhorred him,’ said she, ’I yet kneeled before him for thee.  Let me bend in reverence to that Power, at whose look the whirlwinds are silent, and the seas are calm, that his fury has hitherto been restrained from hurting thee!’

At these words, the face of Almoran was again covered with the blushes of confusion:  to be still beloved only as Hamet, and as Almoran to be still hated; to be thus reproached without anger, and wounded by those who knew not that they struck him; was a species of misery peculiar to himself, and had been incurred only by the acquisition of new powers, which he had requested and received as necessary to obtain that felicity, which the parsimony of nature had placed beyond his reach.  His emotions, however, as by Almeida they were supposed to be the emotions of Hamet, she imputed to a different cause:  ‘As Heaven,’ says she, ’has preserved thee from death; so has it, for thy sake, preserved me from violation.’  Almoran, whose passion had in this interval again surmounted his remorse, gazed eagerly upon her, and catching her to his bosom; ’Let us at least,’ says he, ’secure the happiness that is now offered; let not these inestimable moments pass by us unimproved; but to shew that we deserve them, let them be devoted to love.’  ‘Let us then,’ said Almeida, ‘escape together.’  ‘To escape with thee,’ said:  Almoran, ’is impossible.  I shall retire, and, like the shaft of Arabia, leave no mark behind, me; but the flight of Almeida will at once be traced to him by whom I was admitted, and I shall thus retaliate his friendship with destruction.’  ‘Let him then,’ said Almeida, ‘be the partner of our flight.’  ’Urge it not now,’ said Almoran; ’but trust to my prudence and my love, to select some hour that will be more favourable to our purpose.  And yet,’ said he, ’even then, we shall, as now, sigh in vain for the completion of our wishes:  by whom shall our hands be joined, when in the opinion of the priests it has been forbidden from above?’ ‘Save thyself then,’ said Almeida, and leave me to my fate.’  ‘Not so,’ said Almoran.  ‘What else,’ replied Almeida, ‘is in our power?’ ‘It is in our power,’ said Almoran, ’to seize that joy, to which a public form can give us no new claim; for the public form can only declare that right by which I claim it now.’

As they were now reclining upon a sofa, he threw his arm round her; but she suddenly sprung up, and burst from him:  the tear started to her eye, and she gazed upon him with an earnest but yet tender look:  ‘Is it?’ says she—­’No sure, it is not the voice of Hamet!’ ‘O! yes,’ said Almoran, ’what other voice should call thee to cancel at once the wrongs of Hamet and Almeida; to secure the treasures of thy love