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
flames. He found that no life had been lost, but that many persons had
been hurt; to these he sent the physicians of his own houshold: and
having rewarded those who had assisted them in their distress, not
forgetting even the soldiers who had only fulfilled his own orders, he
returned, and applied himself to dispatch the public business in the
chamber of council, with the same patient and diligent attention as if
nothing had happened. He had, indeed, ordered enquiry to be made after
ALMEIDA; and when he returned to his apartment, he found Abdallah
waiting to express his gratitude for the obligations he had received.

HAMET accepted his acknowledgements with a peculiar pleasure, for they
had some connexion with ALMEIDA; after whom he again enquired, with an
ardour uncommon even to the benevolence of HAMET. When all his questions
had been asked and answered, he appeared still unwilling to dismiss
Abdallah, though he seemed at a loss how to detain him; he wanted to
know, whether his daughter had yet received an offer of marriage, though
he was unwilling to discover his desire by a direct enquiry: but he soon
found, that nothing could be known, which was not dir