IX
Nathan the Prophet did not fail to enlarge upon the miraculous prediction of his Master, and through all the lands of the Exile a tremor ran.
It reached that hospitable table in Cairo where each noon half a hundred learned Cabalists dined at the palace of the Saraph-Bashi, the Jewish Master of the Mint, himself given to penances and visions, and swathed in sackcloth below the purple robes with which he drove abroad in his chariot of state.
"He who is sent thee," wrote Nathan to Raphael Joseph Chelebi, this pious and open-handed Prince in Israel, "is the first man in the world—I may say no more. Honor him, then, and thou shalt have thy reward in his lifetime, wherein thou wilt witness miracles beyond belief. Whatever thou shouldst see, be not astonied. It is a divine mystery. When the time shall come I will give up all to serve him. Would it were granted me to follow him now!"
Chelebi was prepared to follow Sabbataï forthwith; he went to meet Sabbataï's vessel, and escorted him to his palace with great honor. But Sabbataï would not lodge therein.
"The time is not yet," he said, and sought shelter with a humble vendor of holy books, whose stall stood among the money-changers' booths, that led to the chief synagogue, and his followers distributed themselves among the quaint high houses of the Jewry, and walked prophetic in its winding alleys, amid the fantastic chaos of buyers and sellers and donkeys, under the radiant blue strip of Egyptian sky. Only at mid-day did they repair to the table of the Saraph-Bashi.
"Hadst any perils at sea?" asked the host on the first day. "Men say the Barbary Corsairs are astir again."
Sabbataï remained silent, but Samuel Primo, his secretary, took up the reply.
"Perils!" quoth he. "My Master will not speak of them, but the Captain will tell thee a tale. We never thought to pass Rhodes!"
"Ay," chimed in Abraham Rubio, "we were pursued all night by two pirates, one on either side of us like beggars."