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In his reign the Muhammedans were repulsed from Constantinople, and the political movement began which finally established the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad. Omar dying in the year 720, Yazid II., a son of Abd el-Malik, succeeded to the caliphate, and reigned for four years, history being for the most part silent as to the general condition of Egypt under these two caliphs.
"It is Omar Khayyam set to music, you know" she turned to Grace "from the song cycle, 'In a Persian Garden." "I love it," commented Anne, her eyes dreamy. "Do sing it, David." As Miriam went to the piano the whirr of the electric bell came to their ears. Grace glanced interrogatively at David. "Perhaps it's a telegram," she commented.
In passing over the connecting pier, Sidi Omar paused to observe a gang of slaves at work repairing some of the buildings which covered the pier stretching from the mainland to the island. Although slaves, they were not of the black colour or thick-lipped, flat-nosed aspect which we are apt to associate with the name of slave.
The hysterical bitterness with which certain sections of modern people of taste are constantly girding at the bourgeois which, indeed, as Omar Khayyám says, heeds 'as the sea's self should heed a pebble-cast' is one of the most melancholy of recent literary phenomena. It was not so the great masters treated the common man, nor any full-blooded age.
It was Curtis Gordon himself who brought O'Neil the first tidings of this encounter, for, seeing the uselessness of an immediate attempt to overcome Dan's party by force, he determined to make formal protest. He secured a boat, and a few hours later the swift current swept him down to the lower crossing, where McKay put a locomotive at his disposal for the trip to Omar.
But, as I have remarked before, it is only a year or two ago that the ancient edict prohibiting Christian rubbish like ourselves to enter the Mosque of Omar and see the costly marbles that once adorned the inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and so the charm of novelty is added to the deep interest they naturally inspire.
Some day I shall write a novel on that theme, and call it "The Pulley." In this tragic, restless world there must be some place where at last we can lay our heads and be at rest. Some people call it death. Some call it God. My ideal of a man is not the Omar who wants to shatter into bits this sorry scheme of things, and then remould it nearer to the heart's desire.
As for the prophet himself, he went on preaching the truth of Allah and proclaiming new rules of conduct until he died, quite suddenly, of a fever on June the seventh of the year 632. Two years later, Abu-Bekr died and Omar ibn Al-Khattab followed him.
Omar would have avenged the deceit, but his companions represented the sanctity of an oath; and the speedy conversion of Harmozan entitled him not only to a free pardon, but even to a stipend of two thousand pieces of gold.
He hated the idea of coming of age and of having a great deal of money and a great many active duties and responsibilities. His dream was to be left in peace to write his verses; to get away into some sweet impossible wilderness, and sit there singing with as much of the spirit of Omar Kayyam as could reasonably be expected to descend on a youth who only drank water.
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