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, 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.