The unnatural union of the patricians and the mob was dissolved as soon as its object had been attained. The former despised Mohammed, whom they had used solely as an instrument of vengeance, and at once begun to plot his overthrow. Ina few months another insurrection vacated the royal office. Mohammed escaped in a female disguise, only to be poisoned by one of his followers. The African, Yahya, who ruled the city of Malaga, was invited to assume the hazardous and unprofitable honor attaching to the empty title of khalif and the precarious sovereignty of Cordova. That prince, knowing by experience the character of those who tendered him a crown, and the desperation which must have prompted that act when the prejudice against his nationality was considered, while not unwilling to include Cordova in his dominions, yet hesitated to intrust his person to a people whose reputation for disorder and perfidy had gained for it such an infamous and wide-spread notoriety. He therefore delegated his authority to a Berber officer, who, to the consternation and disgust of the inhabitants, took up his abode in the Alcazar, with the title and the powers of viceroy. The old feeling against the Africans was soon revived. A new conspiracy solicited the interference of Khairan, whose advancing years apparently offered no impediment to his participation in treasonable or revolutionary enterprises, and, with the aid of Modjehid, governor of Denia, he easily drove the Berbers from Cordova. But, as each party feared the other, no agreement could be effected concerning the succession, and the Cordovans were again left to extricate themselves as best they might from the difficulties which misgovernment and license had brought upon them. Once more an attempt was made to restore the Ommeyades, and the crown was offered to a brother of Abd-al-Rahman IV., called Hischem, a name of inauspicious associations, and fated to designate the last of that renowned dynasty of Moorish kings.