From this moment he never paused in the persecution of the murderers, who, after bereaving him of what was dearer than life itself, threatened to deprive him of that also. His general, Shelku, made a nocturnal incursion into the Ismailitic territory, and immolated with the sword, many thousands of the “initiated to the dagger,” and erected, in Rudbar, five towers formed of their skulls. Shah Gasi sent first against them, his brother-in-law, the prince of Dilem, Kia Busurgomid, of the same name as the then grand-master of the Assassins; and, after his death, the prince of Ruyan. Thus were irreconciliably opposed to each other, Kia Busurgomid, of Dilem, against Kia Busurgomid, of Alamut; the highland chieftain of one side of the Alps, to the Old Man of the other.[239] When Keikawus, after the death of his nephew, Kia Busurgomid, of Dilem, united the government of that province with the lordship of Ruyan and Rostemdar, Shah Gasi, of Thaberistan, remitted the sum of thirty thousand dinars, which Dilemistan paid, as tribute to his treasury; but on condition, that he should maintain a continued war against the order of the Assassins. The effect of this was, that, at that period, they dared not show themselves anywhere in Ruyan, Mazanderan, and Dilem, and that the Moslimin of those provinces were safe from their daggers. Keikawus undertook some expeditions against Alamut itself, and plundered and ravaged the surrounding country. He wrote a letter to the grand-master Kia Mohammed, in the following words:— “May the life of the infidel, the wicked, the accursed, the base, the reprobate, be extirpated from the face of the earth; may the Almighty God annihilate his house, and the angel of torment prepare his dwelling in hell! God, the most high, has not in vain commanded to the faithful and the pious, the destruction of the infidel and the atheist. The greatest grace and highest favour of the Almighty, is shown in this; that the flaming sword of perdition is waving over your heads and country; that ye, having recourse to empty arrogance and senseless cunning, hemmed in on all sides, are now like the hunted fox, lost in the brake. What hinders ye now from showing your manhood, against us, who sit publicly every where, without chamberlains or door-keepers, guard or officers? against me, your greatest foe on God’s earth?” The grand-master replied in the style of the order, laconically, and cutting as their stilettoes:— “We have read thy letter; the contents are insults, and insult recoils on the insulter.”[240] The successor of Keikawus, Astandar Hasarasf, son of Shehrnush, struck into an entirely different line of policy. Weary of the war against the Assassins, he concluded a treaty of peace and amity, resigned his strongest castles to them, and even abandoned himself to the extravagances of drunkenness.