The servants now
raise him in their arms, and carry him to the governor's house.
His countenance deathly pale, Osman stands at the gate awaiting
them. He sees the sad procession approaching. He knows they are
bringing his friend, and, hastening forward to meet them, he
receives the motionless body, hot, glowing tears pouring from his
eyes.
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.
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