At first, their homes were taken over by sobbing, and disbelief reigned. Then a silence fell. For a day, or two, or three, no one really wanted to talk. What was there to say? That once more we were the weakest, having been deceived—that God had abandoned us? Our Messiah, crushed? How could that be, when we expected him to dethrone the sultan, take power over the whole world, and exalt the humiliated?
