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It was my voice, that forbad thy marriage with ALMEIDA; and my voice, that decreed the throne to ALMORAN: I gave him the power to assume thy form; and, by me, the hand of oppression is now heavy upon thee.
This difference in the situation of ALMORAN and HAMET, produced great dissimilarity in their dispositions, habits, and characters; to which, perhaps, nature might also in some degree contribute. ALMORAN was haughty, vain, and voluptuous; HAMET was gentle, courteous, and temperate: ALMORAN was volatile, impetuous, and irascible; HAMET was thoughtful, patient, and forbearing.
He was now next in trust and power to Osmyn: but as he had proposed a revolt to HAMET, in which Osmyn had refused to concur, he knew that his life was now in his power; he dreaded lest, for some slight offence, or in some fit of causeless displeasure, he should disclose the secret to ALMORAN, who would then certainly condemn him to death.
I have loved a delusive phantom only, which, while I strove to grasp it, has vanished from me. ALMORAN attempted to reply; but on such a subject, neither her virtue nor her wisdom would permit debate. 'That prodigy, said she, 'which I thought was the sleight of cunning, or the work of sorcery, I now revere as the voice of Heaven; which, as it knew thy heart, has in mercy saved me from thy arms.
I know, by such sensations as the world either feels not at all, or feels unnoticed without knowledge of their use, when the powers that are invisible are permitted to mingle in the walks of men; and well I know, that some being, who is more than mortal, has joined with ALMORAN against thee, since the veil of night was last spread upon the earth.
Are not these the precepts of the Prophet, whose wisdom was from above? "Let not the eye of expectation be raised to another, for that which thyself only should bestow: suffer not thy own shadow to obscure thee; nor be content to derive that glory, which it is thy prerogative to impart." 'But is the prince, said ALMORAN, always the wisest man in his dominions?
Thus, therefore, the will of ALMORAN would probably predominate in the state: but as the same cause which conferred this superiority, would often prevent contention, OMAR considered it, upon the whole, rather as good than evil.
HAMET, however, regarded but little what so much excited the envy of ALMORAN; his mind was employed upon superior objects, and agitated by nobler passions: the coldness of his brother's behaviour, though it had grieved had not quenched his affection; and as he was now no longer restrained by the deference due from a subject to his king, he ran to him, and catching him to his breast attempted to speak; but his heart was too full, and he could express his affection and joy only by his tears.
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 from the hand of the robber; to hide, the joys, which if now we lose we may lose for ever, in the sacred and inviolable stores of the past, and place them beyond the power not of ALMORAN only but of fate? With this wild effusion of desire, he caught her again to his breast, and finding no resistance his heart exulted in his success; but the next moment, to the total disappointment of his hopes, he perceived that she had fainted in his arms.
HAMET, whose heart was touched with sudden joy at the sight of so unexpected a remedy for every evil, did not immediately reflect, that he was not at liberty to apply it: he snatched it in a transport from the hand of ALMORAN, and expressed his sense of the obligation by clasping him in his arms, and shedding the tears of gratitude in his breast.
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