"Halt!" he cried. "How dare you profane the House of God?"
"Blasphemers!" retorted Silvera. "Ye who pray for what God in His infinite mercy has granted, do ye mock and deride Him?"
But Solomon Algazi, a hoary-headed zealot, cried out, "My fathers have fasted before me, and shall I not fast?"
For answer a great stone hurtled through the air, just grazing his head.
"Give over!" shouted Elias Zevi, one of Sabbataï's brothers. "Be done with sadness, or thou shalt be stoned to death. Hath not the Lord ended our long persecution, our weary martyrdom? Cease thy prayer, or thy blood be on thine own head." Algazi and De la Papa were driven from the city; the Kofrim, as the heretics were dubbed, were obnoxious to excommunication. The thunder of the believers silenced the still small voice of doubt.
And from the Jewries of the world, from Morocco to Sardinia, from London to Lithuania, from the Brazils to the Indies, one great cry in one tongue rose up:—"Leshanah Haba Berushalayim—Leshanah Haba Beni Chorin. Next year in Jerusalem—next year, sons of freedom!"
XVIII
It was the eve of 1666. In a few days the first sun of the great year would rise upon the world. The Jews were winding up their affairs, Israel was strung to fever pitch. The course of the exchanges, advices, markets, all was ignored, and letters recounting miracles replaced commercial correspondence.
Elijah the Prophet, in his ancient mantle, had been seen everywhere simultaneously, drinking the wine-cups left out for him, and sometimes filling them with oil. He was seen at Smyrna on the wall of a festal chamber, and welcomed with compliments, orations, and thanksgivings. At Constantinople a Jew met him in the street, and was reproached for neglecting to wear the fringed garment and for shaving. At once fringed garments were reintroduced throughout the Empire, and heads, though always shaven after the manner of Turks and the East, now became overgrown incommodiously with hair—even the Piyos, or earlock, hung again down the side of the face, and its absence served to mark off the Kofrim.
Sabbataï Zevi, happy in the love of Melisselda, rapt in heavenly joy, now confidently expecting the miracle that would crown the miracle of his career, prepared to set out for Constantinople to take the Crown from the Sultan's head to the sound of music. He held a last solemn levée at Smyrna, and there, surrounded by his faithful followers, with Melisselda radiantly enthroned at his side, he proceeded to parcel out the world among his twenty-six lieutenants.