Almoran and Hamet by John Hawkesworth
page 91 of 110 (82%)
page 91 of 110 (82%)
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HAMET, his powers were suddenly taken from him, and restored in an
instant; and she beheld the features of ALMORAN vanish, and gazed with astonishment upon his own: 'Thy features change!' said she, 'and thou indeed art HAMET.' 'The sudden trance,' said he, 'has restored me to myself; and from my wrongs where shalt thou be hidden?' This reproach was more than she could sustain, but he caught her as she was falling, and supported her in his arms. This incident renewed in a moment all the tenderness of his love: while he beheld her distress, and pressed her by the embrace that sustained her to his bosom, he forgot every injury which he supposed she had done him; and perceived her recover with a pleasure, that for a moment suspended the sense of his misfortunes. Her first reflection was upon the snare, in which she had been taken; and her first sensation was joy that she had escaped: she saw at once the whole complication of events that had deceived and distressed her; and nothing more was now necessary, than to explain them to HAMET; which, however, she could not do, without discovering the insincerity of her answers to the enquiries which he had made, while she mistook him for his brother: 'If in my heart,' says she, 'thou hast found any virtue, let it incline thee to pity the vice that is mingled with it: by the vice I have been ensnared, but I have been delivered by the virtue. ALMORAN, for now I know that it was not thee, ALMORAN, when he possessed thy form, was with me: he prophaned thy love, by attempts to supplant my virtue; I resisted his importunity, and escaped perdition; but the guilt of ALMORAN drew my resentment upon HAMET. I thought the vices which, under thy form, I discovered in his bosom, were thine; and in the anguish of grief, indignation, and disappointment, my heart renounced thee: yet, as I could not give thee up to death, I could not discover to ALMORAN the attempt which I imputed to thee; when you questioned me, therefore, as ALMORAN, I was betrayed to dissimulation, by the |
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