king advantage of the wiles of ALMORAN,
and the perfidy of ALMEIDA, to defeat the one and to punish the other.
It was now in his power instantly to consummate his marriage, as a
priest might be procured without a moment's delay, and as ALMEIDA'S
consent was already given; he would then obtain the possession of her
person, by the very act in which she perfidiously resigned it to his
rival; to whom he would then leave the beauties he had already
possessed, and cast from him in disdain, as united with a mind that he
could never love. As his imagination was fired with the first conception
of this design, he caught her to his breast with a fury, in which all
the passions in all their rage were at once concentered: 'Let the
priest,' said he, 'instantly unite us. Let us comprize, in one moment,
in this instant, NOW, our whole of being, and exclude alike the future
and the past!' Then grasping her still in his arms, he looked up to
heaven: 'Ye powers,' said he, 'invisible but yet present, who mould my
changing and unresisting form; prolong, but for one hour, that
mysterious charm, that is now upon me, and I will be ever after
subservient to your will!'

ALMEIDA, who was terrified at the furious ardor of this unintelligible
address, shrunk from his embrace, pale and trembling, without power to
reply. HAMET gazed tenderly upon her; and recollecting the purity and
tenderness with which he had loved her, his virtues suddenly recovered
their force; he dismissed her from his embrace; and turning from her, he
dropped in silence the tear that started to his eye, and expressed, in a
low and faultering voice, the thoughts that rushed upon his mind: 'No,'
said he; HAMET shall still disdain the joy, which is at once sordid and
transient: in the breast of HAMET, lust shall not be the pander of
revenge. Shall I, who have languished for the pure delight which can
arise only from the interchange of soul with soul, and is endeared by
mutual confidence and complacency; shall I snatch under this disguise,
which belies my features and degrades my virtue, a casual possession of
faithless beauty, which I despise and hate? Let this be the portion of
those, that hate me without a cause; but let this be far from me!' At
this thought, he felt a sudden elation of mind; and the conscious
dignity of virtue, that in such a conflict was victorious, rendered him,
in this glorious moment, superior to misfortune: his gesture became
calm, and his countenance sed