mind, capable of mixing with his own in the most exquisite delight, of
reciprocating all his ideas, and catching new pleasure from his
pleasure. Desire was no longer appetite; it was imagination, it was
reason; it included remembrance of the past, and anticipation of the
future; and its object was not the sex, but ALMEIDA.

As HAMET never witheld any pleasure that it was in his power to impart,
he soon acquainted Abdallah, that he waited only for a proper time to
place ALMEIDA upon the throne; but that he had some reasons for keeping
a resolution, which he thought himself obliged to communicate to him,
concealed from others.

It happened, however, that some of the women who attended upon ALMEIDA,
met with some female slaves belonging to the seraglio of ALMORAN, at the
public baths, and related to them all the particulars of ALMEIDA'S
preservation by HAMET; that he had first conveyed her to his own
apartments, and had since been frequently with her in that which he had
assigned her in his palace: they were also lavish in the praise of her
beauty, and free in their conjectures what might be the issue of her
intercourse with HAMET.

Thus the situation of HAMET and ALMEIDA became the subject of
conversation in the seraglio of ALMORAN, who learnt it himself in a
short time from one of his women.

He had hitherto professed great affection for HAMET, and HAMET was
deceived by his professions: for notwithstanding the irregularities of
his life, he did not think him capable of concealed malice; or of
offering injury to another, except when he was urged by impetuous
passions to immediate pleasure. As there was, therefore, an appearance