So He Had Fashioned It After The Description That Mahommet Gave
Of His Paradise, To Wit, That It Should Be A Beautiful Garden Running With
Conduits Of Wine And Milk And Honey And Water, And Full Of Lovely Women
For The Delectation Of All Its Inmates.
And sure enough the Saracens of
those parts believed that it was Paradise!
Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to
be his ASHISHIN. There was a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden,
strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get
in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from 12 to
20 years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used
to tell tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont to do, and
they believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he
would introduce them into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time,
having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep
sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they
awoke, they found themselves in the Garden.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1. - Says the venerable Sire de Joinville: "Le Vieil de la Montaingne
ne creoit pas en Mahommet, aincois creoit en la Loi de Haali, qui fu Oncle
Mahommet." This is a crude statement, no doubt, but it has a germ of
truth.
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