Omar Khayyam - a life Read Online Free PDF

thought that he would never have touched a dead Christian.
    It seemed to him that there were so many things to do all at once. Nothing must be omitted that was necessary for Rahim.
    Late that night the mullah with the gray beard looked at him wearily.
    "My son," he said in his dry voice, "even the water of the sacred well of Zemzem must sink into the earth. Life comes from Allah, and to Allah return the souls of the believers upon that day when men's deeds are weighed in the scales of Judgment."
    In his mind Omar saw the face of Rahim, the color of clay, lying upon the wet earth. Now Rahim lay in a clean shroud with his feet toward the holy city of Mecca, down there in the dark ground.
    The mullah went away, having other burials upon his hands that night, and Omar sat down upon a stone. Yarmak came like a dog and sat by him, rocking gently forward and back. Now that his master was buried, Yarmak seemed satisfied. There was no help for it.
    But to Omar, who had lost the foster brother with whom he had grown up, it would be agony to go away from that place by the stone. Here Rahim must lie, washed by the rain, while the grass rose and the wheat was sown and reaped—through all the uncounted years until that day when the souls would rejoin their bodies at the Judgment seat. Behind the curtain of the Invisible, Rahim would wait for that day.
    Omar sat, his chin on his hands, until the gray apparition of the dawn. He felt a little relief in his agony of mind, from the exhaustion of the last two days and nights.
    "O Rahim," he whispered, "thy body is but a tent wherein the soul abides for a little. Then when the tent is struck, the soul goes forth on its long journey. O Rahim, I shall find thee, upon that journey."
    "Aman," assented Yarmak. "Peace!"
    Within his tent Omar found a candle burning and he blinked at it, until the Roumi girl who had been sleeping among the garments thrown into a corner rose and poured a goblet of wine from a jar.
    Omar raised his hand to strike it to the ground. Then he remembered how Rahim had offered him a cup that night they had talked together in the serai on the Nisapur road. He took the goblet and drank it. A warmth crept through his chilled body. The girl filled the goblet again, and again Omar drank. He sighed and threw himself down on the rug, sinking into the stupor of exhaustion.
    The captive girl blew out the candle. Seating herself beside him, she watched the dawn lighten the sky. When she could see everything clearly she picked up a bronze mirror and began to comb out her hair, looking reflectively into the mirror. It was not the first time that she had changed masters overnight.

    Far down the valley the tent of the Sultan Alp Arslan had been pitched at last.
    Turkish amirs thronged the entrance, on both sides of the carpet, straining for a sight of the three men at the head of the carpet. Jafarak, a privileged person, perched himself on a chest from which he could see the three—Romanus Diogenes, the Emperor of the Romans, and the mean little Moslem slave who had found the Emperor lying unconscious on the field and had brought him to the feet of Alp Arslan.
    At first the spectators had watched Romanus, still in his armor, forced to kneel before the Sultan. Alp Arslan had set his foot once on the neck of the imperial captive, and then had lifted Romanus to a seat on the cushions at his right.
    The listeners waited for the first word to be spoken between the commanders of the East and the West.
    "Tell me," Alp Arslan asked casually, "what thou wouldst have done to me had I been brought captive thus before thee."
    Romanus raised his head and thought for a moment, when the speech had been interpreted to him.
    "I would have dealt with thee harshly," he said.
    A smile lightened the dark face of the Sultan. "And what," he demanded, "dost thou expect from my hand?"
    The captive Emperor looked at the intent faces of his enemies, and considered. "It may be that thou wilt slay me here, or place me