eginning of September Nehemiah arrived
in Abydos. He was immediately received in private audience. He bore
himself independently.

"Peace to thee, Sabbatai."

"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?" Sabbatai 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 Sabbatai
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 Sabbatai 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 Sabbatai--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 seiz