Abdul-Kassem and Hassan-Sebbah, fellow-students with Khayyam, were the two comrades to whom he was especially attached, notwithstanding a divergence of character and opinion which would seem to indicate in him another choice. One day Khayyam asked his two friends, in a jesting manner, if a compact entered into among them, and based upon absolute necessity, for that one of the three whom Fortune most favored to come to the aid of the other two, heaping benefits upon them, would appear to them a childish thing. «No, no,» answered they, «the idea is excellent and we will adopt it with all eagerness.» Immediately the three friends clasped hands and vowed that when the time came they would be faithful to their agreement. This pact but stimulated the emulation of the three young people. They applied themselves to their studies with more ardor even than was demanded of them, since in accordance with the tradition of the college, the high places belong to those who merit them. Khayyam, of a sweet and modest nature, was rather given to the contemplation of divine things than to the pleasures of worldly life. This tendency and the kind of study he cultivated made of him a Mystic poet, a philosopher at once skeptical and fatalistic, a Sufi--in a word, what most Oriental poets are. Abdul-Kassem, on the contrary, ambitious and positive in the full acceptation of the word, anxious to come into power, applied himself principally to the study of the history of his country, which presented to him numerous examples of celebrated men who, by their merit and courage, had come into the highest offices, and where, besides, he found excellent lessons in all branches of administration. He became an illustrious statesman. As for Hassan-Sebbah, as ambitious as his fellow-student Abdul-Kassem, but less skilful, and more violent than he in the application of means, artful and jealous of the superiority of his comrades, he followed somewhere nearly the same studies, holding ever to the purpose of serving himself by the ruin of all those who dared to oppose his advancement in the career he had chosen. He also became celebrated, as will be shown farther on in this preface, through the cruelties he committed and the blood he spilled. Their studies ended, the three friends left college and separated to return to their own homes, where they remained a certain length of time without renown. Abdul-Kassem, however, was not long in making himself advantageously known at the Court of Alp-Arslan, the second king of the dynasty of the Seldjoukides, through divers writings on the subject of administration, and soon became the private secretary of that monarch, then under-secretary of State, and finally Prime Minister.