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.