tence of the enchanted gardens,
which Marco Polo described from popular tales, and which, of course, never
existed but in the imagination of the young men, who were either mentally
excited after fasting and prayer, or intoxicated by the haschischa, and
consequently for a time lulled in dreams of celestial bliss which they
imagined awaited them under the guidance of Hassan and his descendants.

[Illustration: Fig. 318.--The Old Man of the Mountain giving Orders to his
Followers.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in the "Travels of Marco Polo,"
Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Library of the Arsenal of Paris).]

The Haschischini, whom certain contemporary historians describe to us as
infatuated by the hope of some future boundless felicity, owe their
melancholy celebrity solely to the blind obedience with which they
executed the orders of their chiefs, and to the coolness with which they
sought the favourable moment for fulfilling their sanguinary missions
(Fig. 318). The Old Man of the Mountain (the master of daggers, _magister
cultellorum_, as he is also called by the chronicler Jacques de Vintry),
was almost continually at war with the Mussulman princes who reigned from
the banks of the Nile to the borders of the Caspian Sea. He continually
opposed them with the steel of his fanatical emissaries; at times, also,
making a traffic and merchandise of murder, he treated for a money payment
with the sultans or emirs, who were desirous of ridding themselves of an
enemy. The Ishmaelians thus put to death a number of princes and Mahometan
nobles; but, at the time of the Crusades, religious zeal having incited
them against the Christians, they found more than one notable victim in
the ranks of the Crusaders. Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, was
assassinated by them; the great Salah-Eddin (Saladin) himself narrowly
escaped them; Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus were pointed out
to the assassins by the Old Man, who subsequently, on hearing of the
immense preparations which Louis IX. was making for the Holy War, had the
daring to send two of his followers to France, and even into Paris, with
orders to kill that monarch in the midst of his court. This king, after
having again escaped, during his sojourn in Palestine, from the murderous
attempts of the savage messengers of the Prince of Alamond, succeeded, by
his courage, his firmness, and his virtues, in inspiring these fanatics
with so much respect, that their chief, looking up