struments together,
caressed them, played all sorts of games, and presented them with the most
exquisite wines and meats (Fig. 317). So that these young men, satiated
with such pleasures, did not doubt that they were in paradise, and would
willingly have never gone out of it again.

"At the end of four or five days, the Old Man sent them to sleep again,
and had them removed from the garden in the same way in which they had
been brought in. He then called them before him, and asked them where they
had been. 'By your grace, lord,' they answered, 'we have been in
paradise.' And then they related, in the presence of everybody, what they
had seen there. This tale excited the astonishment of all those who heard
it, and the desire that they might be equally fortunate. The Old Man would
then formally announce to those who were present, as follows: 'Thus saith
the law of our prophet, He causes all who fight for their Lord to enter
into paradise; if you obey me you shall enjoy that happiness.' By such
words and plans this prince had so accustomed them to believe in him, that
he whom he ordered to die for his service considered himself lucky. All
the nobles or other enemies of the Old Man of the Mountain were put to
death by the assassins in his service; for none of them feared death,
provided he complied with the orders and wishes of his lord. However
powerful a man might be, therefore, if he was an enemy of the Old Man's,
he was sure to meet with an untimely end."

[Illustration: Fig. 317.--The Castle of Alamond and its
Enchantments.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in "Marco Polo's Travels,"
Manuscript of the Fifteenth. Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of
Paris.]

In his story, which we translate literally from the original, written in
ancient French, the venerable traveller attributes the origin of this
singular system of exercising power over the minds of persons to a prince
who in reality did but keep up a tradition of his family; for the Alaodin
herein mentioned is no other than a successor of the famous Hassan, son of
Ali, who, in the middle of the eleventh century, took advantage of the
wars which devastated Asia to create himself a kingdom, comprising the
three provinces of Turkistan, Djebel, and Syria. Hassan had embraced the
doctrine of the Ishmaelian sect, who pretended to explain allegorically
all the precepts of the Mahometan religion, and who did away with public
worship, and originated a creed which was altogeth