Goodbye to Alamut
indeed. There, among forests and lagoons, the fleeing
remnants of Persia found refuge from the Tatar hordes.
When Hulagu's armies came from the east, they may have
taken the Tundurkhan pass from Talaghan and forced their
way through the ravine or over the shoulder of Salambar.
It was not the first Mongol effort against Alamut, and there
must have been those there who knew the ways.
While I loitered, considering these matters, an old man
greeted me, who was cutting hay in his meadow by the
stream. He strolled up with his sickle in his hand, to talk
about the crops and the view. Then who should appear,
as it were out of the ground to disturb the evening quiet,
but the Bakhtiari of the pencil; insinuating as ever, with his
air of superior information, he began to tell me of the castle
in the tills, " up there, impossible to reach"; he waved a
vague arm.
In the old man's eyes, surrounded by innumerable folds
and wrinkles, there passed a little twinkle of a smile; it
never reached his lips; it was like a far flicker of faint summer
lightning scarcely seen; but it was extraordinarily friendly.
" She has been to the castle this morning," he said gravely.
The interfering stranger was put in his place; and feeling
it in some subtle way, took his departure and left us to stroll
home through the shadows and the twilight peace.
In the evening we sat once more over glasses of tea and
discussed the names and the passes of the hills. It was my
last night in the valley of Alamut. Next day, beneath its
high overhanging walls, we climbed out of the Assassins*
country, over the pass, into the legendary forests of Mazan-
deran and down to the Caspian shore.