Osmyn was again overwhelmed with terror and confusion; he had again
offended, but knew not his offence. In the mean time, ALMORAN
recollecting that to express displeasure against Osmyn was to betray his
own secret, endeavoured to suppress his anger; but his anger was
succeeded by remorse, regret, and disappointment. The anguish of his
mind broke out in imperfect murmurs: 'What I am, said, he, 'is, to this
wretch, the object not only of hatred but of scorn; and he commends
only what I am not, in what to him I would seem to be.
These sounds, which, tho' not articulate, were yet uttered with great
emotion, were still mistaken by Osmyn for the overflowings of capricious
and causeless anger: 'My life,' says he to himself, 'is even now
suspended in a doubtful balance. Whenever I approach this tyrant, I
tread the borders of destruction: like a hood-winked wretch, who is left
to wander near the brink of a precipice, I know my danger; but which way
soever I turn, I know not whether I shall incur or avoid it.'
In these reflections, did the reign and the slave pass those moments in
which the sovereign intended to render the slave subservient to his
pleasure or his security, and the slave intended to express a zeal which
he really felt, and a homage which his heart had already paid.
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