Awakened by the dew of his friend's falling tears, Mohammed opens his eyes and looks up. His lips part, and murmur softly, "Dead, Masa is dead!"--nothing more!

The whole history of his anguish lies in the words, "Dead, Masa is dead!"

CHAPTER II

ALL THINGS PASS AWAY.

Ten years had passed since the painful event that had consigned the daughter of the sheik, the Flower of Praousta, to so early a grave, and caused him who had loved her a long and severe illness.

Ten years! To the happy, when he looks back at them, they are but a few days of sunshine, the contemplation of which delights him, and the memory of which softens his heart. To the unhappy they are as a cold, desolate eternity of torment, and he looks back with reluctance at them, and the misery he has endured, measuring the days of anguish that are still to come.

Ten years! In Cavalla they had changed nothing. They had only left their handwriting on the faces of those who had been living ten years before, and had witnessed those painful events. The faces of men had changed, but the sea then, as at that time, shone in the beauty and freshness of eternal youth, and still surged in majesty along its rock-bound coast, and over the deep, the unknown grave of the beautiful Masa, the forgotten one.

Yes, the forgotten one!

All things pass away; grief as well as joy is forgotten. The years roll on over both, like the waves of the deep over the bodies consigned to its keeping.

All things pass away! Man has only to learn and to wait in patience.

No matter how pain may rend his soul, if he only knows how to wait in patience, the balm of time will gradually heal his wounds and soothe his soul. All things pass away!

To be sure there are hopeless and weak natures who refuse to wait for this soothing balm of time; natures which destroy themselves in fiery torture, or in their cowardly weakness are destroyed by the dark genius of despair.

The poor sheik had not been able to bear the loss of his only child, his Masa. He had died of grief. He had called for his Masa with his last breath.

No one now speaks of her. The young girls of that time have now become mothers, and sometimes tell their little ones of the Flower of Praousta and her death, as of a fairy tale of the olden time.

It has become a fairy-tale, and has been written in verses which the fisher-boys sing when they go out upon the waves. They have almost forgotten that only ten years have passed since Masa's death; and when they gaze at the pale, earnest face of Mohammed Ali as he passes through the streets of Cavalla in his business occupations, they scarcely remember that he it is who was the cause of her death.

Does he remember it himself?

All things pass away, grief and joy alike. He has suffered much since those days, but he has suffered in silence; few know that he loved Masa, and these few have considerately refrained from touching the wound that had once bled in his heart, lest it might not yet be healed.

When found on the sea-shore that morning by the father of his friend Osman, Mohammed Ali was taken up to the governor's house, where he was tenderly cared for.

For many days he remained entirely unconscious of all that was going on around him. He lay there coffined in his grief, as in living death. They cooled his feverish brow, and poured strengthening cordials between his lips. The magi cians and sorcerers, as well as the physicians of Cavalla and the neighboring cities, were summoned to his assistance by the tschorbadji and his son. But neither amulets nor talismans, neither medicines nor herbs, could heal the wounds which did not bleed, or cool the burning pain of his soul.

He lay there motionless, his eyes gazing fixedly at vacancy, and yet they constantly saw the one fearful yet blissful picture, the Flower of Praousta, the white dove, as she lay there in the early dawn, her large eyes fixed on him tenderly ; and saw, too, the fearful, the never-to-be-forgotten event. As the dark body sank beneath the waves, a shudder would course through his whole being, and a scarcely-audible cry escape his lips. The ear of his listening friend Osman would catch the word that escaped him, and this word was "Revenge! revenge!"

With time all things pass away. There is a limit to the profoundest pain, to the profoundest torpor. One day Mohammed raised his hand and in a low voice called for water.

Consciousness had returned. He now felt the torment that glowed in his soul. When a man has become conscious of his suffering, there is a possibility of relief.

The water at least cooled his lips; and the tender, affectionate words of his friend, and the tears of sympathy that fell upon his countenance, at last cooled the fire that burned in his soul.

Happy is be who can impart his grief to others, whom Fate does not compel to confine it within his own bosom, and let it gnaw at his vitals. Happy is he who can pour out the burden of his sorrow and suffering in the ear of a friend! That grief of which one can speak is not mortal.

But there is another kind of grief and suffering more bitter than that--it is deep, like the grave. Black like the night is the grief that can find no utterance, that is chained to the heart by a sense of duty.

Are such the grief and suffering that burden the breast of the pale man who stands there on the shore gazing out at the sea? Are such the grief and suffering that sometimes break in upon the solitude and stillness of the night in low sobs from the lips of the man who, but ten years ago, was so full of the courage, energy, and joyousness of youth?

Osman had not nursed his friend alone. A woman had stood at his side; the beautiful Ada, of whom Osman some times whispered to his friend that she loved him.

Upon hearing of his grief and illness, Ada, conscious of her love only, and casting aside all the fetters that bound her, had left her husband's house and came to the palace of her uncle, with whom she was a great favorite. With glowing words she told him that she would never return to the house of her husband, who had long tormented her with his fierce jealousy, because he well knew that his wife did not love him, but loved the friend of his relative, young Mohammed Ali.

In the strength and ardor of her love, she had not cared to deny that this was so, and firmly declared that she would be his alone; and therefore had she come up to the palace to nurse and wait on him she loved, in his illness and distress.

The tschorbadji did not oppose her wishes, and the poor, delicate youth Osman was well pleased to have Ada's assistance in nursing his friend.

She had been at his bedside constantly, and listened eagerly to the words that fell from his lips in the delirium of his fever. Ada would lie on her knees beside him, absorbed in those mysterious outpourings of the human heart; listening to his descriptions of the object of his great love, of his Masa, of her fate, and hear his oaths of vengeance.

After the days of fever, and of the outpourings of anguish, came the days of exhaustion and of returning consciousness. The struggle between life and death lasted long, but life was at last victorious.

Mohammed now felt his weakness, and he lay, as in the beginning of his illness, for many a day, motionless, on his bed, with widely- opened eyes, staring around him.

But he now saw, and was conscious of what he saw.

He saw his friend Osman, who followed his every movement with tender glances, and whose countenance shone with delight when Mohammed smiled on him, and told him with a look that he recognized him, and knew of his love. He saw, too, the veiled woman, who flitted about him, reading his every wish in his face, and fulfilling it before he expressed it. It touched his heart to perceive that there was still a woman who cared for him, and was anxious on his account. He had believed himself alone in the wide world, and there were now beside him two beings that shared his sorrow, and whose hearts beat warmly for him. This was written in their countenances; this their busy, anxious movements betrayed.

When he was sufficiently recovered to be spoken to, Osman told him of Ada's love, of her grief on his account, of her joy in being permitted to nurse him, and of her having separated herself from the past, forsaking all else to serve him and him alone.

He made no reply, but closed his eyes, and a low groan escaped his lips.

Poor Ada! The story of her love reminds him of his own, and for a moment the old wound bleeds afresh.

Could he be ungrateful? Could he now abandon her who had forsaken every thing for him when he was in distress, and needed her care?

Could he do this now, when strength had returned to him, now that he was able to walk in the garden, supported on his friend Osman's arm?

Could he forsake her who walked beside him, her eyes sparkling with delight at his recovery?

And when the tschorbadji came, now that Mohammed was strong enough to occupy himself with his future business matters, and spoke to him seriously, and, with Ada's consent, formally proposed his marriage with his niece, in order that her reputation might not suffer, and that she might regain the position she had lost before the world on his account, could he cowardly decline, and excuse himself with his own grief? Would it become him to say, "Let the woman who has loved me live in disgrace!" Could he do this?

No, he felt that it would be cruel in him to act thus; and how could he be cruel, he who had suffered so much from the inhumanity of others?

He accepted the tscborbadji's proposal. He went to Ada, who awaited him, her heart throbbing anxiously, and asked her if she would be his wife, follow him to his house, and walk with him through life in sorrow and in joy.

He asked this question in a sad, low voice, and Ada knew what lay buried in the depths of his heart; but she, nevertheless, accepted his offer, and consoled herself with the thought: "All things pass away, and time heals all wounds."

She became his wife, and brought with her a rich dowry.

He had, however, made no inquiries after this; did not care for it; and did not rejoice when, on the morning after the wedding, the tschorbadji took his arm and conducted him to one of the largest and best houses in the main street of Cavalla. He showed him the store and parlors, and led him up the stone stairway into the apartments of the harem, that were richly furnished and adorned.

Nor did he smile when, on descending the stairway, Ada met him, and begged him, in her gentle voice, to accept the house and all it contained as his property, as a love-offering from her.

He thanked her with many kind and tender words, yet Ada felt that the wound still burned in his soul, and the sad tone of his voice did not escape her. The house was handsome, and so was the store.

The advice of the merchant Lion had been taken by Ada, and the tschorbadji and he kindly assisted in arranging every thing for the young merchant in a suitable and appropriate manner. Mohammed was not to deal, like his friend Lion, in all kinds of household articles. Lion knew the young man better; he knew that such a business would not suit him, and that his lips would not conform to the necessity of using complacent words and flattery, in order to dispose of his wares. The merchant had, therefore, advised Ada and the tschorbadji to arrange to have the young man embark in a wholesale business.

The tobacco of Macedonia is celebrated far and wide, and vessels come there from all quarters of the globe to export this article and distribute it throughout the world. They had, therefore, made Mohammed proprietor of a large tobacco warehouse, and he had now been engaged in this business some ten years, and had become a wealthy merchant. The people called him a happy man, too, and perhaps be was, for Mohammed seemed to have true domestic happiness in his wife and children; he conducted no second wife into his harem. Ada was his only wife, and the sole mistress of his house.