Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 21

Amsterdam, under the infection of Jewish enthusiasm, effervesced with joy. At Hamburg, despite the epistolary ironies of Jacob Sasportas, the rare _Kofrim_, or Anti-Sabbatians, were forced, by order of Bendito de Castro, to say Amen to the Messianic prayer. At Livorne commerce dried up. At Venice there were riots, and the _Kofrim_ were threatened with death. In Moravia the Governor had to interfere to calm the tumult. At Salee, in Algeria, the Jews so openly displayed their conviction of their coming dominance that the Emir decreed a persecution of them. At Smyrna, on the other hand, a _Chacham_ who protested to the Cadi against the vagaries of his brethren, was, by the power of their longer purse, shaved of his beard and condemned to the galleys.

Three months of princely wealth and homage for Sabbata had pa.s.sed. In response to the joyous inspiration of Melisselda, he had abandoned all his ascetic habits, and lived the life of a king, ruling a world never again to be darkened with sin and misery. The wine sparkled and flowed, the choicest dishes adorned the banqueting-table, flowers and delicate odors made grateful the air, and the beautiful maidens of Israel danced voluptuously before him, shooting out pa.s.sionate glances from under their long eyelashes. The fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz came round. Sabbata abolished it, proclaiming that on that day the conviction that he was the Messiah had been borne in upon him. The ninth of Ab--the day of his Nativity--was again turned from a fast to a festival, the royal edict, promulgated throughout the world, quoting the exhortation of Zephaniah: "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord."

Detailed prescriptions as to the order of the services and the psalmody accompanied the edict.

And in this supreme day of jubilation and merrymaking, of majesty and splendor, crowned with the homage and benison of his race, deputations of which came from all climes and soils to do honor to his nativity, the glory of Sabbata culminated.

(_Here endeth the Second Scroll._)

SCROLL THE THIRD

XXII

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 Sabbata Zevi.

That night, when his queen and his courtiers were sleeping, Sabbata 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!"

"Sabbata!" A ravis.h.i.+ng 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, Sabbata."

"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?" Sabbata 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 Sabbata 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 Sabbata 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 Sabbata--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 wors.h.i.+ppers, 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.

XXIII

The Hakim Bas.h.i.+, the Sultan's physician, who as a Jew-Turk himself, was thought to be the fittest to approach Sabbata, laid the decision of the Grand Seignior before him on the evening of his arrival at Adrianople. The released prisoner was lodged with mocking splendor in a commodious apartment in the palace, overlooking the river, and lay upon a luxurious divan, puffing at a chibouque with pretended calm.

"What reverences is it customary to make to the Grand Seignior?" he asked, with affected nonchalance, when the first salutations with the physician had been exchanged. "I would not be wanting in the forms when I appear before his exalted majesty."

"An end to the farce, Sabbata Zevi!" said the Hakim Bas.h.i.+, sternly.

"The Sultan demands of thee not posturings, but a miracle."

"Have not miracles enough been witnessed?" asked Sabbata, in a low tone.

"Too many," returned the ex-Jew drily. "Yet if thou wouldst save thy life there needs another."

"What miracle?"

"That thou turn Turk!" And a faint smile played about the physician's lips.

There was a long silence. Sabbata's own lips twitched, but not with humor. The regal radiance of Abydos had died out of his face, but its sadness was rather of misery than the fine melancholy of yore.

"And if I refuse this miracle?"

"Thou must give us a subst.i.tute. The Mufti Vanni suggests that thou be stript naked and set as a mark for the archers; if thy flesh and skin are proof like armor, we shall recognize thee as the Messiah indeed, and the person designed by Allah for the dominions and greatnesses to which thou dost pretend."

"And if I refuse this miracle, too?"

"Then the stake waits at the gate of the seraglio to compel thee,"

thundered the Hakim Bas.h.i.+; "thou shalt die with tortures. The mercy of decapitation shall be denied thee, for thou knowest well Mohammedans will not pollute their swords with the blood of a Jew. Be advised by me, Sabbata," he continued, lowering his tone. "Become one of us.

After all, the Moslem are but the posterity of Hagar. Mohammed is but the successor of Moses. We recognize the One G.o.d who rules the heavens and the earth, we eat not swine-flesh. Thou canst Messiah it in a white turban as well as in a black," he ended jocosely.

Sabbata winced. "Renegade!" he muttered.

"Ay, and an excellent exchange," quoth the physician. "The Sultan is a generous paymaster, may his shadow never grow less. He giveth thee till the morn to decide--Turk or martyr? With burning torches attached to thy limbs thou art to be whipped through the streets with fiery scourges in the sight of the people--such is the Sultan's decree. He is a generous paymaster. After all, what need we pretend--between ourselves, two Jews, eh?" And he winked drolly. "The sun greets Mohammed every morn, say these Turks. Let to-morrow's greet another Mohammedan."

Sabbata sprang up with an access of majesty.

"Dog of an unbeliever! Get thee gone!"

"Till to-morrow! The Sultan will give thee audience to-morrow," said the Hakim Bas.h.i.+ imperturbably, and, making a mock respectful salutation, he withdrew from the apartment.

Melisselda had been dosing in an inner chamber after the fatigue of the journey, but the concluding thunders of the duologue had aroused her, and she heard the physician's farewell words. She now parted the hangings and looked through at Sabbata, her loveliness half-framed, half-hidden by the tapestry. Her face was wreathed in a heavenly smile.

"Sabbata!" she breathed.

He turned a frowning gaze upon her. "Thou art merry!" he said bitterly.