The following is the Chinese account as rendered by Remusat:  “The soldiers of this country (Mulahi) are veritable brigands.  When they see a lusty youth, they tempt him with the hope of gain, and bring him to such a point that he will be ready to kill his father or his elder brother with his own hand.  After he is enlisted, they intoxicate him, and carry him in that state into a secluded retreat, where he is charmed with delicious music and beautiful women.  All his desires are satisfied for several days, and then (in sleep) he is transported back to his original position.  When he awakes, they ask what he has seen.  He is then informed that if he will become an Assassin, he will be rewarded with the same felicity.  And with the texts and prayers that they teach him they heat him to such a pitch that whatever commission be given him he will brave death without regret in order to execute it.”

The Arabic narrative is too long to extract.  It is from a kind of historical romance called The Memoirs of Hakim, the date of which Hammer unfortunately omits to give.  Its close coincidence in substance with Polo’s story is quite remarkable.  After a detailed description of the Paradise, and the transfer into it of the aspirant under the influence of bang, on his awaking and seeing his chief enter, he says, “O chief! am I awake or am I dreaming?” To which the chief:  “O such an One, take heed that thou tell not the dream to any stranger.  Know that Ali thy Lord hath vouchsafed to show thee the place destined for thee in Paradise....  Hesitate not a moment therefore in the service of the Imam who thus deigns to intimate his contentment with thee,” and so on.

William de Nangis thus speaks of the Syrian Shaikh, who alone was known to the Crusaders, though one of their historians (Jacques de Vitry, in Bongars, I. 1062) shows knowledge that the headquarters of the sect was in Persia:  “He was much dreaded far and near, by both Saracens and Christians, because he so often caused princes of both classes indifferently to be murdered by his emissaries.  For he used to bring up in his palace youths belonging to his territory, and had them taught a variety of languages, and above all things to fear their Lord and obey him unto death, which would thus become to them an entrance into the joys of Paradise.  And whosoever of them thus perished in carrying out his Lord’s behests was worshipped as an angel.”  As an instance of the implicit obedience rendered by the Fidawi or devoted disciples of the Shaikh, Fra Pipino and Marino Sanuto relate that when Henry Count of Champagne (titular King of Jerusalem) was on a visit to the Old Man of Syria, one day as they walked together they saw some lads in white sitting on the top of a high tower.  The Shaikh, turning to the Count, asked if he had any subjects as obedient as his own? and without giving time for reply made a sign to two of the boys, who immediately leapt from the tower, and were killed on the spot.  The same story is told in the Cento Novelle Antiche, as happening when the Emperor Frederic was on a visit (imaginary) to the Veglio.  And it is introduced likewise as an incident in the Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc: