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Since I last wrote to you, my health has been steadily
improving. I sit by an open window, from which
I have a pleasant view of the olive hills, near Jerusalem,
and a pleasant vale between filled with gardens and vineyards,
and white-walled homes of the vine-dressers and
olive-keepers. In the court of Joab's house are numerous
orange trees, the golden fruits of which shed delightful
odor on the air, while the odorous oleander and
the pomegranate tree, with its scarlet-scolloped cups, and
flowers of every gorgeous hue, enrich the prospect before
me. Zephyrs blow softly in at my window, and the voices
of singing birds, unknown in Assyria, charm my ear.

All this is very grateful to an invalid, and I do not
know how better to dispose of my invigorated health and
cheerful spirits than to write to you, O Belus, and continue
the narrative of the events which transpired during
my detention in Egypt, and which have paved the way
of David, the shepherd, the hero, the poet, and great
captain, to the Throne of Israel.

At the closing part of my last letter, I gave you more
in detail the history of the Seer Samuel than hitherto,

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inasmuch, as it afforded a key to the understanding of
one of the most important periods of the history of this
people. Your majesty can now, with me, intelligently
trace the progress of the Hebrews through the centuries
which have elapsed since the crossing of the Jordan to
the death of Samuel; while the letters of Sesostris*
in your archives have given you a full history of the
wonderful events connected with this nation, from the
calling of Abram out of Assyrian Chaldea, to become the
father of this mighty confederacy of twelve Principalities,
to their forty years' march through the wilderness
towards this land now occupied by them.

The reign of Saul is the foundation of the prophetic
Throne of David; and no future events of David's life can
hardly prove more extraordinary than those of his youth,
from the time of his anointing as King and successor to the
Throne (which from that day was virtually his own) of
Saul, and to the sceptre of Israel.

Your majesty will, perhaps, believe that the Hebrew
monarch, after his reconciliation with David at the cave
of Engeddi, and open acknowledgment of his right to
the succession on his throne, suffered the youthful, God-appointed
heir to his kingdom to remain in peace. Doubtless
he was sincere at the time in what he said and did,
and meant to keep his vow.

But you have learned enough of the fickleness of his
temper, O Belus, to lead you to suspect that the first impulse
of feeling rising against David from any cause,
his persecuting wrath would re-awake. Such was the
fact.

He had returned to Hebron after paying royal honors

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to the sacred ashes of the consecrated Prophet, and,
shutting himself in his palace, he became profoundly melancholy;
a condition of his mind, which, like dark
clouds rolling up the sky, and casting their shadow over
earth's sunshine, foreboded a tempest. Fearing to hasten
the outburst of the simoom across the fiery desert of his
soul, his attendants came not near him. Since the massacre
of the priests he had seldom slept; if so, only
where fatigue chanced to arrest him; and then his dreams
were fearful, and would rouse him with groans of despair
to equally terrible consciousness. His dark visions were
as unendurable as his waking reflections; hence he studiously
kept away from his couch, and compelled his
servants to keep him from sleeping by music, and constant
watchfulness. “Strike the gray beard, Doeg! let
not one be left alive!” he would cry in his sleep, seated
upright in his chair, or leaning against the side of his
throne, or by the window.

How remarkably, your majesty, the massacre of these
priests, all of whom were descendants or kindred of Eli,
fulfilled the prophetic denunciations of the Oracle in the
Sanctuary, when God spake to the child Samuel! Seventy
years had elapsed, and their God, to whom a year
is a moment, makes the fierce and cruel Doeg, the executioner
of his judgments; but with no less guilt to
Doeg, the sword, and Saul the hand which did the deed.
Wicked men may carry out God's purposes, when they
think they are only following the dictates of their own
sanguinary nature. He can make even the fury of his
creatures redound to the glory of his own power and
will.

His daughter, the Princess Michal, at length

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approached her father when he was in one of these gloomy
conditions of mind. She found his face hollow and haggard,
his eyes blood-shotten, his massive jaws hanging
with helpless woe, and his whole frame drooping and
spiritless.

“Father,” she said; “I have come to ask thee to send
me to David, my husband, since thou art reconciled to
him.”

“Thou! what dost thou ask? A husband! By the
brazen gods of Ekron, thou shalt have one!” he cried,
with looks so terrible that she shrank from the blaze of
his eyes. “Call hither Phalti, the Danite lord, son of
Laish!” he commanded his servants.

When the man appeared before him, the king said to
him, “I have heard thou didst love my daughter Michal ere
the son of Jesse beheld her! She has no husband! I
divorce her by the king's oath! Take her! She shall
be thy wife!”

In vain Michal plead for mercy. Phalti was a man
twice her age, and of stern countenance; but virtuous
and upright. He had done his king service in guiding
him to Engeddi, having possessions in the forest. He
would have opposed the king's command, but feared to
do so. The marriage was performed the same hour, and
Phalti bore his wife to his home, saying to his mother,
“This is my sister, and keep her with thee, that David
may, one day, have her.”

When David heard the news, he was justly indignant, and
had a good cause now for quarrel with the king. But he
bore the insult and wrong with forbearance. Saul now followed
up this outrage. He felt that he had thereby wronged
David so that he would certainly, in his anger, come out

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from his fortresses and give him battle; when he hoped to
slay him on the field. He, therefore, went forth again
at the head of his army, and approached the place in the
wilderness of Ziph, where his spies told him David was
fortified. Here, upon a plain partly covered with wood,
the king pitched his camp and slightly entrenched it,
hoping David would attack him on the morrow. From
the top of the rock, David beheld the tents of Saul, his
banners flying, and his whole army in battle-array.

“I will seek Saul's pavilion to-night,” he said, turning
to Abishai, the brave younger brother of his chief captain
Joab, and others about him. “Who will go down
with me thither secretly after dark?”

“I will go down with thee,” answered Abishai.
Under cover of the night, though aided by a new moon,
David, who by daylight carefully marked with his eye
the direction and path, approached the out-posts of the
king's camp. Without being discovered, he entered
within the lines, and came to Saul's pavilion. His
guards slept, and David advanced beyond them, and
stood by the side of the king, who lay fast asleep in his
unharnessed chariot, before the door of his tent, the
light of the young moon distinctly revealing his worn,
yet still majestic features. His javelin was stuck in the
ground at his head. The young warrior stood, and contemplated
his face with profound emotions and sad recollections.
“How changed!” he said, unconsciously
speaking with himself; “how deeply passion has drawn
its ploughshare across his kingly brow! How stern the
visage! He starts and mutters! It is the name Samuel
he pronounces. His dreams trouble him! Alas! I pity
thee, O king!” “My captain,” said Abishai, “the Lord

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hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand!” Now
therefore let me smite him with his own spear, even to
the earth at once! One blow and no more, I ask.

“Destroy not the anointed of God!” said David.
“Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's
anointed and be guiltless? Leave him to the justice of
God. His day will come! Let him fall in battle, but
not by my hand!” He then turned and looked for
awhile at the sleeping king's face, who started, feverish
and ill at ease, and uttered his name in his disturbed
sleep, but with harsh and bitter tones. Abner his general
also slept, his head on his buckler, and his sword in
his hand, not far from the chariot. “Take the spear
at the king's head, and the cruse of water by his side,
and let us depart,” said David to his companion. “He
shall thereby know, and Abner also, that he has been in
my hand!”

Reluctantly Abishai refrained from slaying the king,
and taking the spear and the cruse of water, with which
the feverish king quenched his burning thirst, he followed
David. They repassed the sleeping sentries, no man being
disturbed in the deep sleep that was fallen upon them.
Opposite the camp of Saul was a high hill of rock, about
five bow-shots distant, to the top of which David ascended,
and turning round he called,

“Abner! Hear thou, O Abner, O chief captain of
King Saul! Answerest thou not, Abner son of Ner?”

His loud call aroused the Hebrew general from his
sleep, and springing to his feet, he cried, looking all
about him,

“Who, and where art thou, that criest to the king?”

“Art thou not a valiant man?” continued David

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from the hill; “and who is like to thee, O general, in
Israel? Wherefore hast thou not better kept ward over
thy lord the king? There but now came one near to
destroy thy lord. Is this the way to keep watch and
ward over your master, and the Lord's anointed? As
the Lord liveth, ye are worthy of death! Who am I?
Find thou first where the king's spear is, and the cruse
of water that was at his head as he slept!”

Saul also awakened, and recognizing his well-known
voice, and missing his spear, and the cruse of water, and
perceiving that the man he had wronged had been by his
side as he slept, and refrained from taking his life, with
that impulsive emotion characteristic of him, he was
touched to the heart, and called out, in tones of kindness:

“Is this thy voice, my son David?”

“It is my voice, O king,” answered the noble young
man. “While thou and thine slept, I stood by thy head,
and with thine own spear could have slain thee! I bore
it away, not to insult thee, O my father, but to show
thee that the Lord gave thee into my hand. If the
Lord hath now sent thee against me for my sins, then
will I offer him a sin-offering, and humble myself before
his footstool for my transgression; but if the wickedness
of men hath stirred thee against me, let the Lord destroy
them for driving me into the wilderness, and holes,
and caves of the earth, and even to seek shelter among
the heathen, and under their gods! Wherefore does the
King of Israel hunt me thus, as a wild bird, or a coney
of the rocks, giving me no rest! Moreover thou hast
taken from me my wife, and given her to another! Yet
for all this I slew thee not this night!”

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Then Saul answered and said, “I have sinned, my
son, my son David! Return to Hebron or go where
thou wilt. I will do thee no harm, because my life was
precious in thine eyes. I have been a fool, and a madman
before thee, and have grievously wronged thee and
thine, O David!”

David did not make any answer to these confessions
and promises, for he knew better than to put any confidence
in a prince so wayward and inconstant, and who
still hated him bitterly.

“Behold the king's spear!” he called to Abner. “Let
one of the young men come over and fetch it.”

Saul sent a lad for his spear and cruse of water, and
said:

“Blessed be thou, my son David! The Lord is
with thee! Thou shalt do mighty works and deeds of
valor, and over all thine enemies have the victory and
prevail.”

David, delivering the spear to the youth who timidly
came for it, turned and left the top of the mount, accompanied
by Abishai, and ere midnight regained his own
camp in the hill-forest.

That the king dissembled when he spoke to him so
softly David well knew, for he was not ignorant of the
wickedness and weakness of Saul's character. He was
sure that he would never forgive him for having taken
away his spear, to lose which is a warrior's greatest disgrace.
A few days afterwards, the faithful Jonathan
sent him word that the king, finding he did not return
to Hebron, had called together all his armies, resolved to
destroy him, and all with him, if to be found within the
land of Judea. David, therefore, called a council of his

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friends and captains. There were present the valiant
and fierce Joab, his general; Uriah, his second in command;
Abishai, the brother of Joab, who was now his
armor-bearer instead of Uriah; Hushai and Ahithophel,
both of whom bore arms with David, though war was
not their usual pursuit; also, Abiathar, the priest, in his
sacred robes and ephod.

At length, the counsel of Uriah prevailed, who said:
“That Achish, King of Gath, having certainly learned
that David had, in good faith, and not artfully by stratagem,
before sought his protection and service, had sent
word to Uriah that if his master desired again to leave
Judea, to escape from King Saul, he would gladly receive
him and his followers in his own dominions, and
entreat them with all honor, giving him a high command
in his armies, and places according to their rank and
ability for his men.

“Therefore,” continued Uriah, “if my lord David refuses
to meet the Lord's anointed in battle, ere Saul surrounds
us with his hosts to take us in a snare, let my lord
pass over with all his force unto Achish, king of Gath.”

David, determining to follow this counsel, a few days
afterwards marched from his fastnesses, and crossing the
country of Judea, came to the court of the King of the
Philistines, who received him gladly, and gave him a
palace near his own to dwell in, and places for his followers.

Before David left his camp in the forest of Ziph, to
pass over to Philistia, an interesting incident occurred
which led to his marriage, Michal having been taken
from him by her father. I have already alluded, your
majesty, to Nabal betrothed to the lovely village maiden,

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Abigail, who gave David water when, the year before, a
fugitive he sat thirsty and weary by the well under the
palm trees. The bridegroom, who was much her senior,
and whom she had married by compulsion on the part
of her parents for his great wealth in flocks, herds, and
lands, proved an avaricious and churlish man, and treated
her rather as his slave than his wife. While David and
his followers were encamped between Maon and Carmel
where Nabal dwelt with his young wife, he would have
lost a portion of his flocks by the incursion of a band
of desert robbers, but for the assistance of David's men,
who drove them away, and gave protection to the herdsmen.

Some weeks afterwards, David being greatly in want
of provisions for his garrison, and recalling the service
his people had done the rich Nabal, he sent to Nabal ten
men to bring whatsoever he could spare, bidding his messengers
say to him: “Peace be both to thee, and peace
be to thine house, and peace be unto all thou hast!
Whatsoever cometh to thine hand give unto the servants
of thy son David.”

When the men came to Nabal, and delivered their
captain's gracious words, he roughly answered them:

“Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse ye speak
of? There be many servants now-a-days that break
away from their masters! Shall I take bread, and flesh,
and water, and give it unto men whom I know not whence
they be?”

When the young men returned to David, and reported
his words to him, his indignation was justly kindled at
this treatment by Nabal of one who had done him service.

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“Gird ye on every man his sword!” he cried, buckling
on his own sword; and at the head of four hundred of his
men of war, he hastened to punish Nabal for his inhospitable
conduct. News of his march came to the ears
of his young and beautiful wife, and when she knew all,
(for she had not seen David's messengers, who had met
Nabal in the field,) in great alarm she secretly made
haste, and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins
of wine, five dressed sheep, five measures of parched
corn, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred
cakes of figs, and lading several beasts with them, she
went forward with her servants to meet David. When
she came near she alighted, and bowed herself to the
ground, and when he raised her up, he, with surprise
and pleasure, recognized the fair face of the maiden he
had seen at the well. Eloquently she entreated him to
forego his vengeance, and accept the peace-offering she
had brought. The young captain received of her hand her
gifts, and said: “Go in peace to thine house. Thou hast
prevailed, and for thy sake I spare thy offending lord!”

When Nabal, on her return, was informed by her how
David in fierce wrath was coming upon him, with four
hundred armed men, to destroy him, and how she had
averted the danger, his heart sunk within him, and struck
as with lightning, he fell back paralyzed. Ten days
afterwards he died.

When David heard of the death of Nabal, and the
days of her mourning were passed, he sent to her and
asked her to become his wife; and not long before the
departure of David to pass over to the court of Achish,
he married the beautiful widow of Nabal, and took her
with him into the land of the Philistines.

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At the court of Achish David remained nearly a year
and a half, serving him as a captain in his wars, and increasing
his own fame as a warrior. The King of Gath
gave him and his followers a city in the south to dwell
in, called Ziklag. Saul, in the meanwhile, no longer
able to pursue David, disbanded his army, and remained
in his palace, ill in spirit and body, and Prince Jonathan
his son never left him, but, with noble, filial devotion,
anticipated all his wants, and gave him his tenderest
sympathy in all the darkness and bitterness under which
his soul dwelt. Since the death of Samuel, and the
flight of David, the Hebrew king had ceased to take an
interest in any thing. Few of his people saw him, and
he gave audience to no one save through his son, who
strove with beautiful charity to conceal his father's failing,
and to keep the kingdom together with some show
of government. There was no High Priest no Prophet
in the land for the miserable monarch to resort to; for
Abiathar, the lawful pontiff, was with David in Philistia.
Without God, without prophet, without priest, and it
might be said, without king, the land of Israel was in a
desolate estate, and no man had heart or hope, but only
a prevailing apprehension of coming evil!

Achish, King of Gath, who seems to have been a sagacious
and warlike prince, with deadly hatred of Saul,
and an ambition to subdue Judea to his sceptre, took
advantage of this state of affairs to prepare a vast army
for the invasion of his kingdom. Marching northwardly,
he intended to strike the Jordan, east of Mount Tabor,
and so descend the valley of the river, take Jericho, and
thus hold the key of the land of Israel. He desired,
also, to separate the Hebrews on the west of the river

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from those on the east, and so place Saul between the
Philistines on the Jordan, and the Philistines in their own
country westward.

But Prince Jonathan, whose counsel Saul sought in all
things distrustful of himself, advised the king to hasten
his march to check the Philistines in the pass between
Mount Gilboa on the south, and Mount Hermon on the
north. When King Saul, Jonathan, and his two brothers,
at the head of the army of Israel, reached the
foot of Mount Gilboa, Achish had already pitched his
camp in the valley before it, Gilboa being on one side to
the south, and Tabor also in sight, but far to the north.
The two armies, the largest the hostile nations had
brought into the field since the days of Eli, were encamped
within sight of Saul, who pitched his camp on
the sides of Gilboa, opposite the valley of Shunem, where
Achish lay. Saul and Jonathan ascended the mountain
behind their camp, and surveyed the vast hosts of the
enemy covering all the plain. Jonathan's heart failed
him, because he had heard that David was in the camp
of Achish in high command, and he feared to fight, opposed
to him! The great numbers of his adversaries,
however, filled the king's soul with dismay. He trembled
as he leaned upon his spear, and gazed down upon
the thousands of the army of Achish.

“Is there not one of the race of Ithamar, not a priest
of the house of Eli or Ahimelech, in the army that I can
inquire of God?” he asked of his armor-bearer, Doeg,
the Edomite, who stood behind him.

“Not one, my lord, save Zadoc, whom thou hast
made priest,” answered Doeg. “I finished my work
that day at Nob faithfully.”

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“Where is Abiathar, son of Ahimelech?” demanded
Saul. “Doth he yet live?”

“He is with David,” replied Jonathan.

“Would I had Abiathar here to enquire of God for
me; him will he hear,” said Saul. “Zadoc to whom I
have given the High Priesthood, hath no answers from
God. And David, too, is in yonder camp! It is well
he hideth from my arm, under the plume of Achish and
his gods!”

“Nay, my lord,” said Ishbosheth his son, coming up
the hill, in company with his brother Melchisua, drawing
near the king; “David I hear is not with Achish.
The King of Gath made him and his six hundred men
come a part of the way with him; but his lords and chief
captains took alarm, and told the king that he ought not
to trust him, saying he would be sure in this battle to go
over to his countrymen, and turn his sword against them.
Achish could not prevail that he might keep David, and
sent the son of Jesse back to Ziklag, his town in the
land of the Philistines.” This Ishbosheth was the youngest
son of the king, and a young man who loved rich
apparel, and indulged more in pleasure than in arms;
an elegant and vain youth.

This intelligence was gratifying to the prince, who
felt he should go into battle now with a brave heart.

“Doeg,” said Saul, leaning on the shoulder of his
armor-bearer, as he descended the mountain, first commanding
his sons to go on before him, and speaking
softly in his ear, “knowest thou of a woman that hath
a familiar spirit? It is in vain for me to enquire of
God as to the issue of the coming battle by dreams, or
by prophet, by priest, or by Urim! The heavens are

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brass! Sleep comes not! Samuel is dead! The High
Priest with the Urim and Thummim is with the son of
Jesse! Seek ye, therefore, a woman that hath a familiar
spirit, that I may go to her and enquire of her.”

Then answered the Edomite, “There is a woman, my
lord, that hath a familiar spirit, who dwelleth beyond
Shunem, over the hill of Hermon, in the little village of
Endor, which lieth south of Mount Tabor.”

“Is it far hence, Doeg?” inquired Saul.

“Ten miles in a direct route, but twelve or more to
go about among the hills,” answered Doeg.

That night, after the camp guard of the first watch
had been posted, and the stars alone gave light upon the
hostile hosts, Saul, disguised in the coarse attire of a
man-at-arms, and with no sign of royalty about his person,
save his kingly bearing which could hardly be concealed,
stole from his camp. He was attended by two
men, Doeg and Amasa, the armor-bearer of Abner, a
young man, son of David's sister, but who held firmly to
Saul's side in the war he made against his heroic kinsman.

The masked king, led by Doeg, kept near the foot of
Gilboa, until they had got far enough eastwardly to
avoid the out-posts of the enemy, which were extended
along the plain, and then boldly struck across the open
valley to the foot of Hermon. Under its dark shadows
they followed the herdsmen's paths, until they came to
the other side of the low mountain; when, far in the
north, the black form of Mount Tabor, indistinctly relieved
against the sky, and hiding many of its stars, became
their guide. In an hour more they left the village
of Nain on the left, in silent repose under the hills, and

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entered the obscure hamlet of Endor. Doeg led the
king to a base looking habitation, and said,

“This is the place!”

The king, wearied with his long night tramp over
hill and plain, through glen and mountain gorge, rejoiced
at its termination. The woman timidly unbarred
her gate: for Saul, after the death of Ahimelech, hearing
that the people, being without oracle or priesthood,
sought wizards and diviners, and familiar spirits to inquire
of them, forbade, on pain of death, such enquiries
to be made; thereby showing that he still retained something
of the grace of his former piety. He commanded
by an edict all who had familiar spirits, necromancers,
and fortune-tellers, were they men or women, to be slain
or driven out of his kingdom!

It must have been, therefore, with the most abject
sense of debasement that he now stood in the door of
this mean habitation, whither he had come degradingly
disguised, to consult the sorceress of Endor, who had hid
herself in this obscure place of his kingdom from his
sanginuary edict against her profession.

“Open, woman! Dost thou not hear me? I bring in
my hand for thee a purse of gold!” called out Doeg,
who carried with him a camp lantern, whereby he had
been able to light the king's steps through the dark defiles
of Hermon.

“I fear me also a sword in thine other!” she answered.

“Nay; we be three soldiers of the camp of Saul, who
come hither to learn of thee how the battle, we are soon
to fight, will go!”

The door being carefully opened, after she had looked

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from within fixedly at the three men, Doeg went in,
followed by the king, while the other stood on watch
without. The rude apartment, revealed by the rays of
the lantern, was scarcely a fit abode for any one. In
one corner reposed a white calf, and on a shelf above it
sat a raven gray with age. The woman lighted an old
Tyrian soldier's lamp, which she had doubtless found on
some battle-field. Saul gazed with deep earnestness
upon the tall, aged dame, whose silvery hair, bound by
a fillet smoothly about her lofty forehead, with her grave
and modest costume, gave her an air of dignity he was not
prepared for. Her dark face, once superbly beautiful,
was still distinguished by large, splendid eyes, a noble and
regular profile, and a firm mouth with finely shaped lips.
Her face had the refined, oval contour which is characteristic
of the Phœnician women, for she was a native of Tyre,
as her speech and aspect proved to the king. In age,
she was not more than fifty. With a sort of queenly
air, native to her notwithstanding all her poverty, she
said, looking at Saul, and distinguishing him at once as
the superior of the two men,

“For what dost thou visit me?”

For a moment the king of Israel made no reply. He
hesitated to strike the last blow to sever the golden
chain which bound him to his God; for the act he now
contemplated had no equal in impiety. It was a voluntary
and deliberate renunciation of the Oracles of God
for the accursed vaticinations of an evil spirit. Alas!
how had the august, and once glorious, king fallen!
How had his proud spirit become abased to the dust!
How far had he sunk into infidelity, and the absence of
all moral feeling! How deliberately was he

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approaching the verge of the precipice, over which he was to
plunge into everlasting night!

What a painful, pitiable spectacle to humanity, to angels,
to God, is he, as he stands there in that low hut, his
sandals soiled with his long night-walk, his coarse mantle
torn by thorns, his gray locks wet with the dews of the
hills, his whole appearance desolate and care-worn, and
in his heart a keen sense of degradation; the light of
shame kindling his cheek, that even his familiar Doeg
should behold him thus humbled and superstitious. He
hesitates for another moment, ere his soul cuts itself off
from God, and answers her:

“I pray thee, O Tyrian, divine unto me, by thy familiar
spirit, and bring him up to me whom I shall name
unto thee!”

“I am here a lonely widow, O sir! I am poor, and
have but this one calf in the world. I subsist by my distaff,
and try to live humbly in peace, as becometh a
stranger in the land. Wherefore comest thou to me to
get me into trouble with the king thereof? Behold, thou
knowest what Saul hath done; how he hath cut off those
that have familiar spirits and the wizards out of the
land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life to
cause me to die?”

The king's conscience as well as his pride felt keenly
the rebuke implied by her words; but he answered her
with this solemn oath:

“As the Lord liveth, woman, there shall no punishment
happen to thee for this thing.”

Re-assured, the woman said, fixing her mysterious eyes
upon him,

“Whom shall I bring up before thee from the shades?”

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