s about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont to do, and
they believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he
would introduce them into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time,
having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep
sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they
awoke, they found themselves in the Garden.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.--Says the venerable Sire de Joinville: "_Le Vieil de la Montaingne
ne creoit pas en Mahommet, aincois creoit en la Loi de Haali, qui fu Oncle
Mahommet._" This is a crude statement, no doubt, but it has a germ of
truth. Adherents of the family of 'Ali as the true successors of the
Prophet existed from the tragical day of the death of Husain, and among
these, probably owing to the secrecy with which they were compelled to
hold their allegiance, there was always a tendency to all manner of
strange and mystical doctrines; as in one direction to the glorification
of 'Ali as a kind of incarnation of the Divinity, a character in which his
lineal representatives were held in some manner to partake; in another
direction to the development of Pantheism, and release from all positive
creed and precepts. Of these Aliites, eventually called _Shiahs_, a chief
sect, and parent of many heretical branches, were the Ismailites, who took
their name, from the seventh Imam, whose return to earth they professed to
expect at the end of the World. About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili
stock was established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the mountainous
districts of Northern Persia; and, before their suppression by the
Mongols, 170 years later, the power of the quasi-spiritual dynasty which
Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as
Kain. Their headquarters were at Alamut ("Eagle's Nest"), about 32 miles
north-east of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they
established fortresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved
that they were called _Hashishiya_ or _Hashishin_, from their use of the
preparation of hemp called _Hashish_; and thence, through their system of
murder and terrorism, came the modern application of the word Assassin.
The original aim of this system was perhaps that of a kind of
_Vehmgericht_, to punish or terrify orthodox persecutors who were too
strong to be faced with the sword. I have adopted in the text one of the
readings of the G. Text _Asciscin_, as expressing the o