lessen the pleasure of their interview, nor restrain the first
transports of duty and affection by his presence. He soon met with other
fugitives from the fire, which had opened a communication between the
gardens and the street; and among them some women belonging to ALMEIDA,
whom, he conducted himself to their mistress. He immediately allotted to
her and to her father, an apartment in his division of the palace; and
the fire being now nearly extinguished, he retired to rest.




CHAP. VI.


Though the night was far advanced, yet the eyes of HAMET were strangers
to sleep: his fancy incessantly repeated the events that had just
happened; the image of ALMEIDA was ever before him; and his breast
throbbed with a disquietude, which, though it prevented rest, he did not
wish to lose.

ALMORAN, in the mean time, was slumbering away the effects of his
intemperance; and in the morning, when he was told what had happened, he
expressed no passion but curiosity: he went hastily into the garden;
but when he had gazed upon the ruins, and enquired how the fire began,
and what it had consumed, he thought of it no more.

But HAMET suffered nothing that regarded himself, to exclude others from
his attention: he went again to the ruins, not to gratify his curiosity,
but to see what might yet be done to alleviate the misery of the
sufferers, and secure for their use what had been preserved from the