Of the most faithful promulgators of the new doctrine, of whom we have hitherto made mention, there still remained the Dai Kiabusurgomid, who had not quitted the castle of Lamin during the twenty years that had elapsed since he took it, and the Lieutenant Abu Ali, Dai in Kaswin. When the son of Sabah felt his end approaching, he sent for them to Alamut; and, by his last will, divided the government between them in such a manner, that Abu Ali was invested with the external command and civil administration, and Kiabusurgomid, as proper grand-master, with the supreme spiritual power and government of the order. Thus, at a very advanced age, died Hassan Sabah;[87] for more than seventy years had elapsed, since, as a youth of twenty, he studied with Nisam-ol-mulk, under the Imam Mowasek, in the reign of Togrul. He expired, not on the bed of torture, which his crimes merited, but in his own; not under the poniards, which he had drawn against the hearts of the best and greatest of his contemporaries, but by the natural effect of age; after a blood-stained reign of thirty-five years, during which he not only never quitted the castle of Alamut, but had never removed more than twice, during this long period, from his chamber to the terrace. Immoveable in one spot, and persisting in one plan, he meditated the revolutions of empires by carnage and rebellion; or wrote rules for his order, and the catechism of the secret doctrine of libertinism and impiety. Fixed in the centre of his power, he extended its circumference to the extreme confines of Khorassan and Syria; with the pen in his hand, he guided the daggers of his Assassins. He was, himself, in the hand of Providence, like war and pestilence,—a dreadful scourge for the chastisement of feeble sovereigns and corrupted nations. END OF BOOK II. BOOK III. _Reign of Kia Busurgomid, and his Son, Mohammed._ KIA BUSURGOMID, who had been the general and Dai of Hassan, succeeded him in the spiritual power; and trod precisely in the sanguinary steps of the founder of the order. Daggers and fortresses were the foundations of Hassan’s power, and that of his successor rested on the same basis; the most illustrious leaders of the enemy either fell, or were tottering to their fall. New castles were taken or built. Thus, that of Maimundis was erected;[88] the ruin of which drew with it, in the sequel, the death of the grand-master, and the suppression of the order. Abdolmelek was declared its dehdar, or commandant. These precautions were the more necessary, as the Sultan Sandjar, who had long been deemed a secret protector of the order, now publicly declared himself their enemy. In the month Shaaban, of the same year, also, Atabeg Shirghir, overran the province of Rudbar with an army. The body, which the grand-master sent against him, put the enemy to flight, and carried off a rich booty.[89]