several of his followers. Beckoning to one of them, he said, "Kill thyself," and he instantly stabbed himself; to another, "Throw thyself from the rampart," and the next moment he lay a mutilated corpse in the moat. Then turning to the envoy, the grand master said, "Go tell thy lord, in this way I am obeyed by 70,000 faithful subjects." The grand master was called seyed, the lord, or more commonly sheikh el-je.bel, chief of the mountain region (incorrectly translated old man of the mountain), because the order always maintained itself in castles among the mountains in Persia, Irak, and Syria. He never assumed the title of sultan or emir, and preached not in his own name, but in that of the invisible imam who was to appear at a future period. Immediately under the grand master were the duah el-leibar, grand recruiters or priors, his lieutenants in the three provinces to which his order extended. Under these were the duah or dais, the religious nuncios and political emissaries, the initiated masters. Then followed the refiks, fellows, who were advancing to the mastership through the several grades of initiation into the secret doctrine. Next came the sedavi, the guards of the order, the warriors, and devoted murderers; then the sassik (aspirants), the novices; and finally the profane or the people. Hassan laid down for his dais seven rules of conduct : 1. The ash-inai-ruk (knowledge of the calling) comprised the maxims for the judgment of character necessary in selecting subjects. 2. The teenis (gaining confidence) taught them to gain over candidates by flattering their inclinations and passions. 3. As soon as they were won, it was necessary to involve them by doubts and questions on the religious commands and absurdities of the Koran. 4. The ahd, or oath, bound the aspirant in the most solemn manner to inviolable silence and submission. 5. The candidates were taught how their doctrines agreed with those of the greatest men in church and state. 6. The tessis (confirmation) recapitulated rill that preceded. 7. The teevil (allegorical instruction), in opposition to the tensil or literal sense of the divine word, was the principal essence of the secret doctrine, reserved only to a few of the initiated.—Hassan ben Sabah was speedily attacked by the sultan Malek, but he sustained himself, and even gained new strong-holds. The practice of assassination by which he became the terror of eastern monarchs was first tried upon his early friend the grand vizier Nizam ul-Mulk. The death of the sultan, apparently by poison, soon followed, and then ensued a fearful series of murders and reprisals. Fakhr ul-Mulk Abul-Mosaffar, who had succeeded his father Nizam ul-Mulk as grand vizier, and another of the royal family, were assassinated. One of Sultan Sanjar's slaves, who had been won over to the Assassins, stuck a dagger into the ground near his master's head while the latter was asleep. Some days after the sultan received a letter from Alamut, saying, "Had we not been well disposed toward the sultan, we might have plunged the dagger into his heart instead of the ground." Peace was then concluded between the parties, and many privileges were granted to the Assassins. Hassan ben Sabah survived all his nearest relations and most faithful disciples. He slew two of his sons without any apparent cause. He died in 1124, at the age of 90 years, and was succeeded by his general and chief dai, Kia Busurg-Omid, in whose time hostilities were renewed by Sultan Sanjar, and great numbers of the Assassins were put to death. The vizier of Damascus gave them the castle at Banias, near the source of the Jordan, which became the centre of their power in Syria. In 1118 Abul-Wefa, the prior there, entered into a treaty with Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, by which he bound himself to put the city of Damascus into his power in return for the city of Tyre; but the plot was discovered by the sultan, and the greater part of the Assassins and the crusaders were attacked and cut to pieces. At Cairo the Fatimite caliph Abu Ali Mansour fell by the dagger of an Assassin, and shortly after (1135) the Abbasside caliph was assassinated at Bagdad. The Assassins now spread all over the western part of Asia, from the confines of Khorasan to the mountains of Syria, from the Caspian to the southern shores of the Mediterranean. In 1171 the last of the Fatimite dynasty died, and the lodge at Cairo was overthrown. Saladin, who became sultan of Egypt, proved a formidable enemy to the Assassins. In the month of Ramazan, 1163, Hassan II., the fourth grand master, summoned the inhabitants of the province to Alamut, where he addressed the multitude, announced the day of resurrection or revelation of the imam, and commanded them to break the fast and give themselves up to all kinds of pleasure. A similar proclamation was made throughout the country, and was received by a majority of the people with joy. In 1175 the Assassins made two futile attempts on Saladin's life, and he in return ravaged their territory, and only desisted from completely annihilating their power on condition of his being in the future safe from their daggers. About 1191 Conrad, lord of Tyre and marquis of Montfort, a near relation of Leopold, duke of Austria, was murdered by two Assassins, said to have been hired for that purpose by Richard I. of England; and it seems that the imprisonment of the latter by Leopold was in reprisal for the death of his kinsman. Hassan III. prohibited everything that his grandfather and father had allowed, and again enforced the observance of the precepts of Islamism; and no assassinations were committed in his reign. By this prudent conduct he acquired the good will of the Moslem princes, and received from the caliph of Bagdad the title of sovereign prince, a favor never granted to any
of his predecessors. Under his successor, Aladin Mohammed, the use of the dagger was resumed. About 1252 Hulaku, monarch of the
