son
Jalal-ud-din, was anticipated by him with poison, which murder was again
avenged by poison," so that from "Hasan the Illuminator" down to the
last of his line the Grand Masters fell by the hands of their
next-of-kin, and "poison and the dagger prepared the grave which the
Order had opened for so many."[136] Finally in 1250 the conquering
hordes of the Mongol Mangu Khan swept away the dynasty of the Assassins.

But, although as reigning powers the Assassins and Fatimites ceased to
exist, the sects from which they derived have continued up to the
present day; still every year at the celebration of the Moharram the
Shiahs beat their breasts and besprinkle themselves with blood, calling
aloud on the martyred heroes Hasan and Husain; the Druses of the Lebanon
still await the return of Hakim, and in that inscrutable East, the
cradle of all the mysteries, the profoundest European adept of secret
society intrigue may find himself outdistanced by pastmasters in the art
in which he believed himself proficient.

The sect of Hasan Saba was the supreme model on which all systems of
organized murder working through fanaticism, such as the Carbonari and
the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were based, and the signs, the
symbols, the initiations, of the Grand Lodge of Cairo formed the
groundwork for the great secret societies of Europe.

How came this system to be transported to the West? By what channel did
the ideas of these succeeding Eastern sects penetrate to the Christian
world? In order to answer this question we must turn to the history of
the Crusades.

3

THE TEMPLERS

In the year 1118--nineteen years after the first crusade had ended with
the defeat of the Moslems, the capture of Antioch and Jerusalem, and the
instalment of Godefroi de Bouillon as king of the latter city--a band of
nine French _gentilshommes_, led by Hugues de Payens and Godefroi de
Saint-Omer, formed themselves into an Order for the protection of
pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin II, who at this moment succeeded
to the throne of Jerusalem, presented them with a house near the site of
the Temple of Solomon--hence the name of Knights Templar under which
they were to become famous. In 1128 the Order was sanctioned by the
Council of Troyes and by the Pope, and a rule was drawn up by St.
Bernard under which the Knights Templar were bound by the vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience.

But although the Templars distinguished themselves