THE DESCENT OF BOLSHEVISM
additional power. Perhaps the Assassins wanted a window on the sea when they entered into a secret treaty with the Crusaders by which they were to barter Damascus for Tyre. But the plot was discovered in time, and the people of Damascus rose against them, massacring six thousand in the streets and crucifying the more prominent among them along the city walls. Aleppo and Diarbekr followed the example of Damascus. But these massacres had little or no effect, it seems, upon a Sect that lived by assassination. It continued to flourish, even after its power had been broken in Persia, until the Mamluk Sultan Bibars, a score of years later, set out from Egypt to imitate in Syria Hulago's example. And he was as successful as the Tartar chief. For the Assassins were ultimately out-assassined, almost exterminated by Bibars, and their Sect was abolished,—"buried," as one historian puts it, "amidst the ruins of thrones and altars, and covered with the universal execration of mankind."
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