The Grand Master of the Temple, Philip of Naplous, resigned his authority after a short government of three years, and was succeeded (A. D. 1170) by Brother Odo de St. Amand, a proud and fiery warrior, of undaunted courage and resolution; having, according to William, Archbishop of Tyre, the fear neither of God nor of man before his eyes.[21] It was during his Grand Mastership (A. D. 1172) that the Knight Templar Walter du Mesnil slew an envoy or minister of the assassins. These were an odious religious sect, settled in the fastnesses of the mountains above Tripoli, and supposed to be descended from the Ismaelians of Persia. They devoted their souls and bodies in blind obedience to a chief who is called by the writers of the Crusades “the old man of the mountain,” and were employed by him in the most extensive system of murder and assassination known in the history of the world. Both Christian and Moslem writers enumerate with horror the many illustrious victims that fell beneath their daggers. They assumed all shapes and disguises for the furtherance of their deadly designs, and carried, in general, no arms except a small poniard concealed in the folds of their dress, called in the Persian tongue _hassissin_, whence these wretches were called _assassins_, their chief the prince of the assassins; and the word itself, in all its odious import, has passed into most European languages.[22] Raimond, son of the count of Tripoli, had been slain by these fanatics whilst kneeling at the foot of the altar in the church of the Blessed Virgin at Carchusa or Tortosa; the Templars flew to arms to avenge his death; they penetrated into the fastnesses and strongholds of “the mountain chief,” and at last compelled him to purchase peace by the payment of an annual tribute of two thousand crowns into the treasury of the order. In the ninth year of Amalric’s reign, _Sinan Ben Suleiman_, imaun of the assassins, sent a trusty counsellor to Jerusalem, offering, in the name of himself and his people, to embrace the christian religion, provided the Templars would release them from the tribute money. The proposition was favourably received; the envoy was honourably entertained for some days, and on his departure he was furnished by the king with a guide and an escort to conduct him in safety to the frontier. The Ismaelite had reached the borders of the Latin kingdom, and was almost in sight of the castles of his brethren, when he was slain by the Knight Templar Walter du Mesnil, who attacked the escort with a body of armed followers. The king of Jerusalem assembled the barons of the kingdom at Sidon to determine on the best means of obtaining satisfaction for the injury; and it was determined that two of their number should proceed to Odo de St. Amand to demand the surrender of the criminal. The haughty Master of the Temple bade them inform his majesty the king, that the members of the order were not subject to his jurisdiction, nor to that of his officers; that the