The Fedavi entered, locked the door, and throwing the imam to the ground, placed himself with his drawn dagger on his breast. The imam demanded his purpose. “To tear out thy heart and bowels!”—“And wherefore?”—“Because thou hast spoken evil of the Ismailites in the public pulpit.” The imam conjured the Assassin to spare his life, and swore most solemnly never to slander the Ismailites again. “If I leave thee,” said the murderer, “thou wilt fall back into thy old ways, and consider thyself released from thy oath by artful sophistries.” The imam renounced all explaining away of the oath, and was willing to abide the penalties of perjury. “I had no commands to slay thee, or I had not been wanting in the execution. Mohammed, the son of Hassan, greets thee, and requests thee to honour him with a visit at his castle. Thou shalt there receive unbounded power, and we will obey thee as honest servants. ‘We despise,’ says the grand-master, ‘the rumours of the people, which glide from our ears like nuts from a globe; but you shall not insult us, because your words are graven as with a graver on stone.’” The imam replied that he could not go to Alamut, but that, in future, he would not permit himself to utter a word against the lord of that fortress. Upon this the Fedavi drew three hundred pieces of gold from his girdle, which he gave him, saying, “Behold thy pension; and by a decree of the divan, thou wilt receive the same sum annually from the Reis Mosaffer. I also leave thee two dresses of Yemen for thy servant; these also the grand-master sends thee.” At the same instant the Fedavi disappeared. The imam took the dresses and the money, and for four or five years the same sum was scrupulously paid him. Prior to this occurrence, he was wont, whenever he mentioned the Ismailites in a discussion, to express himself thus: “Whatever the Ismailites (whom may God curse and destroy) may say.” After he had received the pension, he always said briefly: “Whatever the Ismailites may say.” He answered one of his pupils, who asked him the cause of this change: “We may not curse the Ismailites; their arguments are too convincing and pointed.” This singular occurrence, which is related by several Persian historians,[181] circumstantially and concordantly, shows that the grand-master’s policy did not consider murder only as the most effective measure, but also frequently deemed the fear of it, and money, preferable. It shows also that the divan, or assembly of the order, studied less the removal of their foes than the converting them into friends, especially where they were men of learning and celebrity, as their lives being spared was of far more advantage to the order in public opinion, than their violent deaths could have been.