In the mean time, ALMEIDA, who had been conveyed to an apartment in
ALMORAN'S seraglio, and delivered to the care of those who attended upon
his women, suffered all that grief and terror could inflict upon a
generous, a tender, and a delicate mind; yet in this complicated
distress, her attention was principally fixed upon HAMET. The
disappointment of his hope, and the violation of his right, were the
chief objects of her regret and her fears, in all that had already
happened, and in all that was still to come; every insult that might be
offered to herself, she considered as an injury to him. Yet the
thoughts of all that he might suffer in her person, gave way to her
apprehensions of what might befall him in his own: in his situation,
every calamity that her imagination could conceive, was possible; her
thoughts were, therefore, bewildered amidst an endless variety of
dreadful images, which started up before them which way soever they were
turned; and it was impossible that she could gain any certain
intelligence of his fate, as the splendid prison in which she was now
confined, was surrounded by mutes and eunuchs, of whom nothing could be
learned, or in whole report no confidence could be placed.
While her mind was in this state of agitation and distress, she
perceived the door open, and the next moment ALMORAN entered the
apartment. When she saw him, she turned from him with a look of
unutterable anguish; and hiding her face in her veil, she burst into
tears. The tyrant was moved with her distress; for unfeeling obduracy is
the vice only of the old, whose sensibility has been worn away by the
habitual perpetration of reiterated wrongs.
He approached her with looks of kindness, and his voice was
involuntarily modulated to pity; she was, however, too much absorbed in
her own sorrows, to reply. He gazed upon her with tenderness and
admiration; and taking her hand into his own, he pressed it ardently to
his bosom: his compassion soon kindled into desire, and from soothing
her distress, he began to solicit her love. This instantly roused her
attention, and resentment now suspended her grief: she turned from him
with a firm and haughty step, and instead of answering his professions,
reproached him with her wrongs. ALMORAN, that he might at once address
her virtue and her passions, observed, that though he had loved her from
the first moment he had seen her, yet he had concealed his passion even
from her, till it had received the sanction of an invisible and superior
power; that he came, therefore, the messenger of heaven; and that he
offered her unrivalled empire and everlasting love. To this she
answered only by an impatient and fond enquiry after HAMET. 'Think not
of HAMET,' said ALMORAN; 'for why should he who is rejected of Heaven,
be still the favorite of ALMEIDA?' 'If thy hand,' said ALMEIDA, 'could
quench in everlasting darkness, that vital spark of intellectual fire,
which the word of the Almighty has kindled in my breast to burn for
ever, then might ALMEIDA cease to think of HAMET; but while that shall
live, whatever form it shall inhabit, or in whatever world it shall
reside, his image shall be for ever present, and to him shall my love be
for ever true.' This glowing declaration of her love for HAMET, was
immediately succeeded by a tender anxiety for his safety; and a sudden
reflection upon the probability of his death, and the danger of his
situation if alive, threw her again into tears.
ALMORAN, whom the ardour and impetuosity of her passions kept sometimes
silent, and sometimes threw into confusion, again attempted to sooth and
comfort her: she often urged him to tell her what was become of his
brother, and he as often evaded the question. As she was about to renew
her enquiry, and reflected that it had already been often made, and had
not yet been answered, she thought that ALMORAN had already put him to
death: this threw her into a new agony, of which he did not immediately
discover the cause; but as he soon learned it from her reproaches and
exclamations, he perceived that he could not hope to be heard, while she
was in doubt about the safety of HAMET. In order, therefore, to sooth
her mind, and prevent its being longer possessed with an image that
excluded every other; he assumed a look of concern and astonishment at
the imputation of a crime, which was at once so horrid and so
unnecessary. After a solemn deprecation of such enormous guilt, he
observed, that as it was now impossible for HAMET to succeed as his
rival, either in empire or in love, without the breach of a command,
which he knew his virtue would implicitly obey; he had no motive either
to desire his death, or to restrain his liberty: 'His walk' says he, 'is
still uncircumscribed in Persia, and except this chamber, there is no
part of the palace to which he is not admitted.'
To this declaration ALMEIDA listened, as to the music of paradise; and
it suspended for a-while every passion, but her love: the sudden ease of
her mind made her regardless of all about her, and she had in this
interval suffered ALMORAN to remove her veil, without reflecting upon
what he was doing. The moment she recollected herself, she made a gentle
effort to recover it, with some confusion, but without anger. The
pleasure that was expressed in her eyes, the blush that glowed upon her
cheek, and the contest about the veil, which to an amorous imagination
had an air of dalliance, concurred to heighten the passion of ALMORAN
almost to phrensy: she perceived her danger in his looks, and her
spirits instantly took the alarm. He seized her hand, and gazing
ardently upon her, he conjured her, with a tone and emphasis that
strongly expressed the tumultuous vehemence of his wishes, that she
would renounce the rites which had been forbidden above, and that she
would receive him to whom by miracle she had been alloted.
ALMEIDA, whom the manner and voice of ALMORAN had terrified into
silence, answered him at first only with a look that expressed aversion
and disdain, overawed by fear. 'Wilt thou not,' said ALMORAN, 'fulfill
the decrees of Heaven? I conjure thee, 'by Heaven, to answer.' From
this solemn reference to Heaven, ALMEIDA derived new fortitude: she
instantly recollected, that she stood in the presence of Him, by whose
permission only every other power, whether visible or invisible, can
dispense evil or good: 'Urge no more,' said she, 'as the decree of
Heaven, that which is inconsistent with Divine perfection. Can He in
whose hand my heart is, command me to wed the man whom he has not
enabled me to love? Can the Pure, the Just, the Merciful, have ordained
that I should suffer embraces which I loath, and violate vows which His
laws permitted me to make? Can He have ordained a perfidious, a
loveless, and a joyless prostitution? What if a thousand prodigies
should concur to enforce it a thousand times, the deed itself would be a
stronger proof that those prodigies were the works of darkness, than
those prodigies that the deed was commanded by the Father of light.'
ALMORAN, whose hopes were now blasted to the root, who perceived that
the virtue of ALMEIDA could neither be deceived nor overborne; that she
at once contemned his power, and abhorred his love; gave way to all the
furies of his mind, which now slumbered no more: his countenance
expressed at once anger, indignation, and despair; his gesture became
furious, and his voice was lost in menaces and execrations. ALMEIDA
beheld him with an earnest yet steady countenance, till he vowed to
revenge the indignity he had suffered, upon HAMET. At the name of HAMET,
her fortitude forsook her; the pride of virtue gave way to the softness
of love; her cheeks became pale, her lips trembled, and taking hold of
the robe of ALMORAN, she threw herself at his feet. His fury was it
first suspended by hope and expectation; but when from her words, which
grief and terror had rendered scarce articulate, he could learn only
that she was pleading for HAMET, he burst from her in an extasy of rage,
and forcing his robe from her hand, with a violence that dragged her
after it, he rushed out of the chamber, and left her prostrate upon the
ground.
As he passed through the gallery with a hasty and disordered pace, he
was seen by OMAR; who knowing that he was returned from an interview
with ALMEIDA, and conjecturing from his appearance what had happened,
judged that he ought not to neglect this opportunity to warn him once
more of the delusive phantoms, which, under the appearance of pleasure,
were leading him to destruction: he, therefore, followed him
unperceived, till he had reached the apartment in which he had been used
to retire alone, and heard again the loud and tumultuous exclamations,
which were wrung, from his heart by the anguish of disappointment: 'What
have I gained,' said he, 'by absolute dominion! The slave who, secluded
from the gales of life and from the light of heaven toils without hope
in the darkness of the mine, riots in the delights of paradise compared
with me. By the caprice of one woman, I am robbed not only of enjoyment
but of peace, and condemned for ever to the torment of unsatisfied
desire.'
OMAR, who was impatient to apprize him that he was not alone, and to
prevent his disclosing sentiments which he wished to conceal, now threw
himself upon the ground at his feet. 'Presumptuous slave!' said ALMORAN,
'from whence, and wherefore art thou come?' 'I am come,' said OMAR, 'to
tell thee that not the caprice of a woman, but the wishes of ALMORAN,
have made ALMORAN wretched.' The king, slung with the reproach, drew
back, and with a furious look laid his hand upon his poignard; but was
immediately restrained from drawing it, by his pride. 'I am come,' said
OMAR, 'to repeat that truth, upon which, great as thou art, thy fate is
suspended. Thy power extends not to the mind of another; exert it,
therefore, upon thy own: suppress the wishes, which thou canst not
fulfill, and secure the happiness that is within thy reach.'
ALMORAN, who could bear no longer to hear the precepts which he
disdained to practice, sternly commanded OMAR to depart: 'Be gone,' said
he, 'lest I crush thee like a noisome reptile, which men cannot but
abhor, though it is too contemptible to be feared.' 'I go,' said OMAR,
'that my warning voice may yet again recall thee to the path of wisdom
and of peace, if yet again I shall behold thee while it is to be found.'