LITMIR.BIZ

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David had leave to go to Bethlehem to visit his father. Jonathan said nothing more, but the Evil Spirit descended even at the feast, in the company of all the lords, and Saul imagined that Jonathan was plotting against him; and in his fury, possessed by the Lord, he cast his spear against Jonathan also, his own best beloved son. That was the misery of it; the Spirit brought him to violence, not only against those who were his enemies, but against those whom he loved. To me, though, he was ever tender, and over our love the Spirit had no power. Jonathan's anger at the time was fierce; but Jonathan was noble of heart—his father's son, without his father's affliction; and he knew, when he came to himself, that it was not the father whom he honoured who had done this deed. He went out and warned David, but he did not go with him, and presently he returned into the city and comforted his father. When David had gathered together his four hundred knaves in rebellion, Saul sat in Gibeah under the tree there, and his servants stood round him in council. They were all of them valiant and faithful, but he broke out against them, and accused them of conspiring with David against him. "There is none," he cried, "that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me." "None of you that is sorry!" His suffering was so great, and so little was it understood, that he believed no one cared for him, and at times he said bitter things which kept men apart from him, and sent some of them to David. His anguish was all the greater because he thought Jonathan, his son, whom he so much loved, had become estranged from him, and secretly communicated with David, and was content to give up his succession to the royal crown, and take the second place when David should be upon the throne. But again I say it, no harsh word ever came to me, although for days he would hardly speak; and then, suddenly, as he sat by me, he would lay his head upon my neck, and tears would come of which he was ashamed.

      The never-ceasing pursuit of David was sad even to me, and yet when the Spirit left him to himself Saul relented. When David was in Engedi, and hard pressed, he came out to Saul and submitted himself to him. He boasted that he could have slain Saul—what a boast to make! that he had spared the Lord's anointed and the father of Jonathan, his chosen friend!

      The king was much given to sudden change. Sometimes his mood would leave him, and his face become clear in a moment, like the heavens in a thunderstorm when the lightning has spent itself, and the wind shifts, and the blue sky in an instant is revealed. Never, when this happened, did he resist, and by constraint remain in his sorrow, but sang and was glad, and if I was beside him, delighted himself with me. The happiest of men would he have been, even as a king, if the Evil Spirit from the Lord would have left him. He was overcome with his ancient love for David, and wept, and acknowledged, although it was false, that David was more righteous than he, and prayed for the Lord's blessing upon him. Yet even then the ever-present Fear was before him. "I know well," he said, "that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand." And he made David swear that he would not cut off the seed of the royal house, so that the name of Saul might live. And David sware: David sware, the blaspheming liar, who gave up to the Gibeonites my sons, and the sons of Merab. It was Jonathan, whom Saul had in mind when he caused David to swear; but Saul's prayer was but breath, for the Lord cut off Jonathan in battle, and Saul was the only king of the house of Kish.

      After Samuel's death, David, with his men, went over to the Philistines, who gave him Ziklag as the place of his abode. He played the traitor to Achish as he had done to Saul, and he went out against the Geshurites, the Gezrites, and the Amalekites, the friends of Achish, murdering both men and women, and returned and lied to Achish, telling him he had fought against Judah and its allies. Had it been his purpose to hide himself and to do good service to his master Saul in the war which the Philistines were preparing for him, his treachery might have excused him; but he had no mind to assist Saul or Israel. He sang a song after Gilboa in memory of the king and Jonathan, but he came not near them in the day of battle, and he profited by their overthrow. He brought his men to Achish, as if he would go down with him to the fight; but the Philistines distrusted him, and sent him back to Ziklag. Who knows what he intended? He told Achish that he meant to take his part against Saul, but no word of his could ever be believed. Nevertheless, I doubt not that he would have been as good as his promise if it had been permitted to him. It is certain that he knew what was about to happen, and that, if he had been loyal to his prince, he would have striven to assist him.

      I remember that dreadful day before the day of Gilboa. The host of the Philistines came and pitched in Shunem as the sand of the desert for number. Saul had gathered all Israel together, but they were fewer than the Philistines, and disheartened. He knew, moreover, that David and his men were with the enemy; and as he went out that morning, and saw the host of the Philistines lie upon the hillside, he greatly trembled, not with fear of death, for he never feared to die, but because his Terror was upon him, and the Lord refused to speak to him. He inquired of Him, but the Lord answered him not. The high priest had brought the ephod, but was dumb, and the prophets heard nothing. Two nights before the day of the battle, he had sought the Lord for a dream, and had lain down by my side in hope. The dream came, but it was a dream of the Terror, and he shrieked and turned, and clasped me in his arms; and I soothed him, and asked him what he had dreamed, but he could not tell—it was a horror, awful, shapeless, which he dared not try to utter; and he clasped me again, me wretched, clasped me for the last time. He rose and went out in the morning early; went round his army by himself. He was alone, and he knew that God had forsaken him.

      In his extremity he bethought him of witchcraft. In his zeal for God, which availed him nothing, he had cast out of the land all those who dealt with familiar spirits, but one was still left at Endor. To her he went to obtain some voice from the unknown world, thinking that by chance light might shine in upon his despair. But when he came to the woman, and she asked him what spirit she should call, he could do nothing but ask for Samuel. He feared him, and yet he desired to see him. It was always strange to me that he, such a king, should be so subdued by Samuel's presence. It was so in life, and it was so in death. The spirit of Samuel rose, and Saul humbled himself before the shadow. Alas, Samuel had learned no pity through death, and his ghost was as fierce as the living man of years gone. He had passed into the land of emptiness and vanity, yet his wrath burnt as if mortal blood had been in him. Saul bowed unto him and told him his trouble, how he was sore distressed, for the Philistines made war upon him, and God had departed from him, and answered him not. It was a dreadful sight, so the woman herself told me afterwards, a king abasing himself before a spectre of a priest and craving mercy. The worst foe whom Saul had in the land would have felt his heart touched, and the wicked woman herself was moved with great compassion. If success could not be promised, at least some comfort might have been given, but Samuel was bitterness itself; terrible he always was to me, so bitter and so hard that I shuddered at him. He turned upon Saul and denounced him, he, the dead, denounced him who was about to die, and declared that the Lord was his enemy. Enemy! for what, because he had spared Agag? And yet that was, in a measure, the reason; for Saul was too much of a man for the priest, and therefore the priest set up David against him. The ghost stood there, and doomed the king. "The Lord," he cried, "hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David, because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines." For this cause Saul was to fall, and his three sons, and there was to be a great slaughter of Israel. When David the adulterer murdered Uriah, was that not a worse crime, yet was his punishment as Saul's? And what punishment there was fell not on David as it would have fallen upon my lord and upon me. After David's son died, he straightway rose up, eat and drank, and went in unto Bathsheba the whore; and she, the wife of Uriah, whom he had murdered, submitted to be comforted by him.

      When Saul heard the words of Samuel, he fell straightway in the darkness all along on the earth, and there was no strength in him, for he had eaten no bread all the day nor all the night. The woman offered him bread, but he sat on the bed and would not eat. At last, as the morning was breaking, he consented to eat, and he went away to make ready for the fight. He was assured he would perish that day, and that before the sun set he would be in Sheol with Samuel, bat he did not play the coward and nee. He fought as the king he was, but the Philistines were too many

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