s of Poland, who were
decimated by Cossack massacres, they had had their long expectation of
the Messiah intensified by the report which Baruch Gad had brought
back to them from Persia--how the Sons of Moses, living beyond the
river Sambatyon (that ceased to run on the Sabbath), were but
awaiting, amid daily miracles, the word of the Messiah to march back
to Jerusalem. The lost Ten Tribes would reassemble: at the blast of
the celestial horn the dispersed of Israel would be gathered together
from the four corners of the Earth. But Sabbatai deprecated the
homage; of Redemption he spake no word.

And verily his coming seemed to bode destruction rather than
salvation. For a greedy Pacha, getting wind of the disloyalty of the
synagogue to the Sultan, made it a pretext for an impossible fine.

The wretched community was dashed back to despair. Already reduced to
starvation, whence were they to raise this mighty sum? But,
recovering, all hearts turned at once to the strange sorrowful figure
that went humbly to and fro among them.

"Money?" said he. "Whence should I take so much money?"

"But thou art Messiah?"

"I Messiah?" He looked at them wistfully.

"Forgive us--we know the hour of thy revelation hath not yet struck.
But wilt thou not save us by thy human might?"

"How so?"

"Go for us, we pray thee, on a mission to the friendly Saraph-Bashi of
Cairo. His wealth alone can ransom us."

"All that man can do I will do," said Sabbatai.

"May thy strength increase!" came the grateful ejaculation, and
white-bearded sages stooped to kiss the hem of his garment.

So Sabbatai journeyed back to Cairo by caravan through the desert,
preceded, men said, by a pillar of fire, and accompanied when he
travelled at night by myriads of armed men that disappeared in the
morning, and wheresoever he passed all the Jewish inhabitants flocked
to gaze upon him. In Hebron they kept watch all night around his
house.

From his casement Sabbatai looked up at the silent stars and down at
the swaying sea of faces.

"What if the miracle be not wrought!" he murmured. "If Chelebi refuses
to sacrifice so much of his substance! But they believe on me. It must
be that Jerusalem will be saved, and that I am the Messiah indeed."

At Cairo the pious Master of the Mint received him with ecstasy, and
granted his request ere he had made an end of speaking.

That night Sabbatai wandered away from all his followers, beyond the
moonlit Nile, toward