“The Slayer of Souls—Erlik’s vice-regent on earth—Hassan Sabbah. The Old Man of the Mountain. It is of him I am speaking,” exclaimed Tressa Norne—with quiet resolution. “Genghis sought only physical conquest of man; the Yezidee’s ambition is more awful, _for he is attempting to surprise and seize the very minds of men_!” There was a dead silence. Tressa looked palely upon the four. “The Yezidees—who you tell me are not sorcerers—are using power—which you tell me is not magic accursed by God—to waylay, capture, enslave, and destroy _the minds and souls of mankind_. “It may be that what they employ is hypnotic ability and psychic power and can be, some day, explained on a scientific basis when we learn more about the occult laws which govern these phenomena. “But could anything render the threat less awful? For there have existed for centuries—perhaps always—a sect of Satanists determined upon the destruction of everything that is pure and holy and good on earth; and they are resolved to substitute for righteousness the dreadful reign of hell. “In the beginning there were comparatively few of these human demons. Gradually, through the eras, they have increased. In the twelfth century there were fifty thousand of the Sect of Assassins. “Beside the castle of the Slayer of Souls on Mount Alamout——” she laid her finger on the map—“eight other towers were erected for the Eight Chief Assassins, called Sheiks-el-Djebel. “In the temple we were taught where these eight towers stood.” She picked up a pencil, and on eight blank spaces of unexplored and unmapped Mongolia she made eight crosses. Then she turned to the men behind her. “It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight _foci_ of infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of evil—perverted missionaries—to spread the poisonous propaganda, to teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls. “All over the world are people, already contaminated, whose minds are already enslaved and poisoned, and who are infecting the still healthy brains of others—stealthily possessing themselves of the minds of mankind—teaching them evil, inviting them to mock the precepts of Christ. “Of such lost minds are the degraded brains of the Germans—the pastors and philosophers who teach that might is right. “Of such crippled minds are the Bolsheviki, poisoned long, long ago by close contact with Asia which, before that, had infected and enslaved the minds of the ruling classes with ferocious philosophy.