Early in the forenoon the light touch of a loved hand upon his
shoulder roused him from deeps of reverie.
He uplifted a white, haggard face. Melisselda stood before him in all
her dazzling freshness, like a radiant spirit come to chase the demons
of the night. The ancient Spanish song came into his mind, and the
sweet, sad melody vibrated in his soul.
From her bath she arose,
Pure and white as the snows,
Melisselda.
Coral only at lips
And at sweet finger-tips,
Melisselda.
His eyes filled with tears--the divine dreams of youth stirred faintly
within him.
"Is it Peace with thee?" she asked.
His head drooped again on his breast.
"From the casement I saw the sun rise over the Maritza," he said,
"kindling the sullen waters, but my faith is still gray and dead. Nay,
rather there came into my mind the sublime poem of Moses Ibn Ezra of
Granada: 'Thy days are delusive dreams and thy life as yon cloud of
morning: whilst it tarries over thy tabernacle thou may'st remain
therein, but at its ascent thou art dissolved and removed unto a place
unknown to thee,' This is the end, Melisselda, the end of my great
delusion. What am I but a man, with a man's pains and errors and
self-deceptions, a man's life that blooms but once as a rose and fades
while the thorn endures?" The ineffable melancholy of his accents
subdued her to silence: for the moment the music of his voice, his sad
brooding eyes, the infinite despair of his attitude swayed her to a
mood akin to his own. "Verily it was for me," he went on, "that the
Sephardic poet sang--
"'Reflect on the labor thou didst undergo under the sun, night and
day, without intermission; labor which thou knowest well to be without
profit; for, verily in these many years thou hast walked after vanity
and become vain. Thou wast a keeper of vineyards, but thine own
vineyard thou hast not kept; whilst the Eyes of the Eternal run to and
fro to see if the vine hath flourished, whether the tender grapes
appear, and, lo! all was grown over with thorns; nettles had covered
the face thereof. Thou hast grown old and gray, thou hast strayed but
not returned.' Yea, I have strayed, but is the gate closed for return?
To be a man--only a man--how great that is!" His voice died away, and
with it the sweet, soothing spell. Fire glowed in Melisselda's breast,
heaving her bosom, shooting sparks from her eyes.
"Nay, if thou art only a man, thou art not even a man. My love is
dead."
As he shrank beneath her contempt, another stanza of his ancient song
sang itself involuntarily in his brain. Never had he seen her thus.
In the pride of her race,
As a sword shone her face,
Melisselda.
And her lids were steel bows,
But her mouth was a rose,
Melisselda.
_But her mouth was a rose._ Ah, God, the pity of it, to leave the rose
for the crown of thorns!
"Melisselda!" he cried, with a sob. "Have pity on me."
The door opened; two of the Imperial Guards appeared.
"Thou slayest me," he said in Hebrew.
"I worship thee," she answered him, in the same sacred tongue. Her
face took on its old confident smile.
"But I am a man."
Once again her lids were steel bows.
"Then die like a man! Thinkst thou I would share thy humiliation? If I
am to be a Moslem's bride, let me be the Sultan's. If I am not to
share the Messiah's throne, let me share an Emperor's. Thy Spanish
song made me an Emperor's daughter--I will be an Emperor's consort."
And she laughed wantonly.
The guards advanced timidly with visible awe. Melisselda's swiftly
flashing face changed suddenly. She drew him to her breast.
"My King!" she murmured. "'Twas cruel to tempt my faith thus." Then
releasing him, she cried, "Go to thy Kingdom."
He drew himself up; the fire in her eyes flashed into his own.
"The Sultan summons thee," said one of the guards reverently.
"I am ready," he said, calmly adjusting the folds of his black mantle.
Melisselda was left alone. The slow moments wore on, tense and
terrible. Little by little the radiant faith died out of her face.
Half an hour went by, and cold serpents of doubt began to coil about
her own heart.
What if Sabbataï were only a man after all? With frenzied rapidity she
reviewed the past; now she glowed with effulgent assurances of his
divinity, the homage of his people, the awe of Turk and Christian,
Rabbis and sages at his feet, the rich and the great struggling to
kiss his fan, the treasures poured into his unwilling palms; now she
shivered with hideous suggestions and remembrances of frailty and
mortal ineptitude. And as her faith faltered, as the exaltation, with
which she had inspired him, ebbed away, alarm for his safety began to
creep into her soul, till at last it was as a flood sweeping her in
his traces. And the more her fears swelled the more she realized how
much she had grown to love him, with his sad, dark, smooth-skinned
beauty, the soft, almost magnetic touch of his hand. Messiah or man,
she loved him: he was right. What if she had sent him to his death! A
cold, sick horror crept about her limbs. Perhaps he had dared to put
his divinity to the test, and the ribald Turk was even now gloating
over the screams of the wretched self-deluded man. Oh, fool that she
had been to drive him to the stake and the fiery scourge. If divine,
then to turn Turk were part of the plan of Salvation; if human, he
would at least be spared an agonized death. The bloody visions of her
childhood came back to her, fire coursed in her fevered veins. She
snatched up a mantilla and threw it over her shoulders, then dashed
from the chamber. Her houri-like beauty in that palace of hidden
moon-faces, her breathless explanation that the Sultan had summoned
her to join her husband, carried her past breathless guards, through
door after door, past the black eunuchs of the seraglio and the white
eunuchs of the royal apartment, till through the interstices of purple
hangings she had a far-off glimpse of the despot in his great imperial
turban, sitting on his high, narrow throne, his officers around him. A
page stopped her rudely. Faintness overcame her.
"Mehmed Effendi," called the page.
Dizzy, her tongue scarcely under control, she tried to proffer to the
tall door-keeper who parted the hangings her request for admission.
But he held out his arms to catch her swaying form, and then, as in
some monstrous dream, something familiar seemed to her to waft from
the figure, despite the white turban and the green mantle, and the
next instant, as with the pain of a stab, she recognized Sabbataï.
"What masquerade is this?" her white lips whispered in indignant
revulsion as she struggled from his hold.
"My lord, the Sultan, hath made me his door-keeper--_Capigi Bashi
Otorak_," he replied deprecatingly. "He is merciful and forgiving. May
Allah exalt his dominion. The salary is large; he is a generous
paymaster. I testify that there is no God but God. I testify that
Mohammed is God's prophet." He caught the swooning Melisselda in his
arms and covered her face with kisses.