Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/53

 On the other hand, believing sincerely that morality and religion are the best sureties of a nation, the strongest bulwark of a state, they affected an extraordinary sanctity, wearing the coarsest garments and abstaining, in public at least, from wine and sensuous pleasures. Hasan himself, whatever his motive, rarely ventured outside of his castle in Alamut, where he lived a recluse for thirty-five years. But invisible himself, he saw with a thousand eyes the subtle machinations of princes, the sluggish engines of Oriental politics, the veiled altars of inimical sects and creeds. And he was the lord of a thousand secret daggers.

But in the ranks there was often dissension and murmurs of discontent. The reign of assassination, tempered with readings from the Koran, did not always succeed in veiling the high mysteries from the people, who were kept in the bonds of law and religion, while the chiefs often enjoyed every immunity. The disparity was becoming fatal to the cause. And Hasan himself