hout 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 Sabbatai 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 Sabbatai Zevi.

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

"Sabbatai!" 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 b