Egypt -- History -- Mohammed Ali, 1805-1849 -- Fiction; Muhammad Ali Basha, Governor of Egypt, 1769-1849 -- Fiction
Osman understood why Mohammed was so kind and genial to-day. He knew
that the day had its significance, and that the wound bled within
secretly and incessantly. In silence Mohammed is praying for
forgiveness, for having on this day permitted his thoughts to wander
back to the past, for having sunk down in sadness upon the spot on
the brow of the rock that had once witnessed his happiness; and he
desires to be mild and gentle to his family this evening. His wife
Ada is thankful and very happy. Mohammed so rarely laughs and jests
with her, so rarely plays with the boys! To be sure he has never
grieved her, has always been kind and gentle, and has never opposed
her wishes. But yet she knows she has no share in his inmost heart.
He talks with her of the daily affairs of life, he allows her to
participate in all such matters, but he never speaks to her of his
heart's inmost thoughts, and whether he suffers and longs to leave
these desolate cliffs, or whether he is discontented with the
monotonous, matter-of-fact life he is leading--she knows not!
Mohammed has never complained to her, neither has he to his friend.
But the latter has read his friend's heart, and understands it
better than Mohammed himself. And a day was soon to come which
proved this.
A message came from Stamboul. A large ship arrived at Cavalla, and
her sailors related that a number of ships still larger and
handsomer had arrived in the Bay of Sta. Marmara. The ship put out a
boat, which came to the shore and landed a richly-attired officer
who went up to Cavalla. He repaired to the palace and delivered a
letter, secured with magnificent seals, to the tschorbadji. The
letter was from Cousrouf Pacha to his host of former years. He had
not been heard from since that time, and the tschorbadji had
supposed himself long since forgotten. He was familiar with the ways
of the great, whose lips are ever ready to utter promises, which are
forgotten, the next hour. Ten years have elapsed, and but rarely
have Cousrouf Pacha, his new grandeur, and the great things the
future had in store for him, been heard of in Cavalla. And now a
letter announces that Cousrouf Pacha still remembers, and gladly
remembers, former days.
"The Sublime Porte has determined," so read the pacha's letter to
the governor, "the Sublime Porte has determined to oppose the French
occupation of Egypt with energy. The rich land of Egypt belongs to
the Sublime Porte, and without any color of right France takes
possession of it as its own property."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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