"Messiah!" she cried, with heaving bosom. "Come, I will teach thee the joy of life. Together we will rule the world. What! when thou hast redeemed the world, shall it not rejoice, shall not the morning stars sing together? My King, my Sabbataï."
Her figure was a queen's, her eyes were stars, her lips a woman's.
"Kiss me!" they pleaded. "Thy long martyrdom is over. Now begins my mission—to bring thee joy. So hath it been revealed to me."
"Hath it been indeed revealed to thee?" he demanded hoarsely.
"Yea, again and again, in dreams of the night. The bride of the Messiah—so runs my destiny. Embrace thy bride."
His eyes kindled to hers. He seemed in a circle of dazzling white flame that exalted and not destroyed.
"Then I am Messiah, indeed," he thought, glowing, and, stooping, he knew for the first time the touch of a woman's lips.
XIV
The Master of the Mint was overjoyed to celebrate the Messiah's marriage under his own gilded roof. To the few who shook their heads at the bride's past, Sabbataï made answer that the prophecies must be fulfilled, and that he; too, had had visions in which he was commanded, like the prophet Hosea, to marry an unchaste wife. And his disciples saw that it was a great mystery, symbolizing what the Lord had spoken through the mouth of Jeremiah: "Again I will build thee and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry." So the festivities set in, and the Palace was filled with laughter and dancing and merrymaking.
And Melisselda inaugurated the reign of joy. Her advent brought many followers to Sabbataï. Thousands fell under the spell of her beauty, her queenly carriage, gracious yet gay. A new spirit of romance was born in ritual-ridden Israel. Men looked upon their wives distastefully, and the wives caught something of her fire and bearing and learnt the movement of abandon and the glance of passion. And so, with a great following, enriched by the beauty of Melisselda and the gold of the Master of the Mint, Sabbataï returned to redeem Jerusalem.