If a double parricide stain the annals of other dynasties, nature and terror stop with the second, lest, by a long enchainment of horrors, and a series of parricides, our belief in humanity, and in the most sacred feelings, should expire. The history of the Assassins alone, in heaping atrocity on atrocity, surpasses hell itself; we see four murders in succession, by near relations, criminally and horribly avenged by near relations. From Hassan, the Illuminator, to the fall of the order, the blood of the grand-masters dropped, from step to step, down to the last: two of them died by the hands of their sons; two by those of their nearest relatives: poison and the dagger prepared the grave which the order had opened for so many.
Hassan fell by the dagger of his brother-in-law, and his wicked son, Mohammed: the latter, aiming at the life of his son, Jelaleddin, was anticipated by him with poison; which murder was again revenged by poison, by his nearest relative. Alaeddin, son of Jelaleddin, had the mixer of the poison put to death, and was himself murdered, by his own son’s command. The place of the ruby goblet of Jemshid, and the sparkling sword of Rustam, the royal insignia of the ancient Persian kings, was supplied with the Assassins, by the envenomed cup and polished dagger. The grand-masters directed it to the hearts of their enemies, without being able to turn it from their own. Their guards, the devoted to death, were common murderers. Hell reserved for the grand-masters themselves the privilege of parricide.
END OF BOOK V.
BOOK VI.
Reign of Rokneddin Kharshah, the last Grand-master of the Assassins.
The crimes of the society of murderers, which had long ago exceeded the measure of humanity, had, at length, filled to overflowing that of retributive vengeance: after an existence of a hundred and seventy years, the tempest of destruction fell, with terrific fury, on the Assassins. The conquering power of Jengis Khan, thundering in the distance, had passed innocuously over their heads; but under the third of his successors, Mangu Khan, the whirlwind of Mongols swept over the eastern world, and, in its desolating progress, carried away, along with the khalifat, and other dynasties, that of the Assassins. In the year 582 of the Hegira,[247] when the seven planets were in conjunction, in the sign Libra, as they had been, a century before, in that of Pisces,[248] all Asia was trembling, in expectation of the end of the world, which astrologers had declared was to happen, the first time by a deluge, and the second by hurricanes and earthquakes. But if, the first time, a swollen mountain torrent drowned only a few pilgrims, in order not to put the prophecy to the blush; and the second, there was so little wind on the appointed night, that lights burnt freely in the open air, on the top of the minarets, without being extinguished; nevertheless, at both periods, [166]political revolutions came to the help of the astrologers’ predictions, who had interpreted the conjunction of the planets as indicating physical changes.
At the end of the fifth century of the Hegira, the deluge of the Assassins inundated the whole of Asia; and at the end of the sixth, Jengis Khan rushed on, like a hurricane, and the earth quaked under the hoofs of the Mongols. The rage of the tempest afterwards spread through all Asia, and the shocks of the earthquake carried their ruin as far as Europe. During the reign of Mangu, the conquest of China and Persia was completed by his brothers, Kublai and Hulaku; and as the preponderating power of the latter, trod into ruins the citadel of the Assassins, and rolled the khalif’s throne in the dust, his expedition to Persia deserves our most particular attention.
Tandju Newian, the general of Mangu Khan, who covered the frontiers of Iran, sent to his master the ambassadors of the khalif of Bagdad, who complained of the atrocities of the Assassins, and besought him to extirpate the vile race. Their complaints were seconded by those of the judge of Kaswin, who was at the khan’s court, and went in armour to the audience, fearing the daggers of the Assassins, against whose crimes he raised the voice of humanity. Mangu immediately collected an army, which he placed under the command of his brother, Hulaku, whom, on departing, he addressed in the following words: “I send thee, with much cavalry and a strong army, from Turan to Iran, the land of great princes. It is thine, to observe the laws and ordinances of Jengis Khan, in great things, and in small, and to take possession of the countries from the Oxus to the Nile. Assemble round thee, with favours and rewards, the obedient and the submissive; but tread into the dust of contempt and misery, the refractory and mutinous, with their wives and children. When thou hast done with the Assassins, begin the conquest of Irak. If the khalif of Bagdad comes forward willingly to serve thee, then shalt thou do him no harm; but, if he refuse, let him share the fate of the rest.”[249] Upon this, Hulaku went from Kara Kurum to the camp, and put his forces in order, and reinforced them with a thousand families of Chinese fire-work makers. These latter managed the besieging machines and the artillery of flaming naphtha, which has been known to Europe, under the name of the Greek fire, since the Crusades; but was long before used by the Arabs and Chinese, as well as gunpowder.[250] In Ramadan,[251] he broke up his camp; and receiving constant reinforcements on his march, he halted for a month, first at Samarkand and afterwards at Kash.