In the hour of his triumph, two Poles, who had made the pious
pilgrimage, told him of a new Prophet who had appeared in far-off
Lemberg, one Nehemiah Cohen, who announced the advent of the Kingdom,
but not through Sabbataï Zevi.
That night, when his queen and his courtiers were sleeping, Sabbataï
wrestled sore with himself in his lonely audience-chamber. The spectre
of self-doubt--long laid to rest by music and pageantry--was raised
afresh by this new and unexpected development. It was a rude reminder
that this pompous and voluptuous existence was, after all, premature,
that the Kingdom had yet to be won.
"O my Father in Heaven!" he prayed, falling upon his face. "Thou hast
not deceived me. Tell me that this Prophet is false, I beseech Thee,
that it is through me that Thy Kingdom is to be established on earth.
I await the miracle. The days of the great year are nigh gone, and lo!
I languish here in mock majesty. A sign! A sign!"
"Sabbataï!" A ravishing voice called his name. He looked up.
Melisselda stood in the doorway, come from her chamber as lightly clad
as on that far-off morning in the cemetery.
There was a strange rapt expression in her face, and, looking closer,
he saw that her laughing eyes were veiled in sleep.
"It is the sign," he muttered in awe.
He sprang to his feet and took her white hand, that burnt his own, and
she led him back to her chamber, walking unerringly.
"It is the sign," he murmured, "the sign that Melisselda hath truly
led me to the Kingdom of Joy."
But in the morning he awoke still troubled. The meaning of the sign
seemed less clear than in the silence of the night; the figure of the
new Prophet loomed ominous.
When the Poles went back they bore a royal letter, promising the
Polish Jews vengeance on the Cossacks, and commanding Nehemiah to come
to the Messiah with all speed.
The way was long, but by the beginning of September Nehemiah arrived
in Abydos. He was immediately received in private audience. He bore
himself independently.
"Peace to thee, Sabbataï."
"Peace to thee, Nehemiah. I desired to have speech with thee; men say
thou deniest me."
"That do I. How should Messiah--Messiah of the House of David, appear
and not his forerunner, Messiah of the House of Ephraim, as our holy
books foretell?" Sabbataï answered that the Ben Ephraim had already
appeared, but he could not convince Nehemiah, who proved highly
learned in the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldean, and argued point
by point and text by text. The first Messiah was to be a preacher of
the Law, poor, despised, a servant of the second. Where was he to be
found?
Three days they argued, but Nehemiah still went about repeating his
rival prophecies. The more zealous of the Sabbatians, angry at the
pertinacious and pugnacious casuist, would have done him a mischief,
but the Prophet of Lemberg thought it prudent to escape to Adrianople.
Here in revenge he sought audience with the Kaimacon.
"Treason, O Mustapha, treason!" he announced. He betrayed the
fantastic designs upon the Sultan's crown, still cherished by Sabbataï
and known to all but the Divan; the Castellan of Abydos, for the sake
of his pocket, having made no report of the extraordinary doings at
the Castle.
Nehemiah denounced Sabbataï as a lewd person, who endeavored to
debauch the minds of the Jews and divert them from their honest course
of livelihood and obedience to the Grand Seignior. And, having thus
avenged himself, the Prophet of Lemberg became a Mohammedan.
A Chiaus was at once dispatched to the Sultan, and there was held a
Council. The problem was grave. To execute Sabbataï--beloved as he was
by Jew and Turk alike--would be but to perpetuate the new sect. The
Mufti Vanni--a priestly enthusiast--proposed that they should induce
him to follow in the footsteps of Nehemiah, and come over to Islam.
The suggestion seemed not only shrewd, but tending to the greater
glory of Mohammed, the one true Prophet. An aga set out forthwith for
Abydos. And so one fine day when the Castle of the Dardanelles was
besieged by worshippers, when the Tower of Strength was gay with
brightly clad kings, and filled with pleasant plants and odors and the
blended melodies of instruments and voices, a body of moustachioed
Janissaries flashed upon the scene, dispersing the crowd with their
long wands; they seized the Messiah and his queen, and brought them to
Adrianople.