And there was a woman whose name was Bath-sheba, and she was very
beautiful. Her midnight hair curled softly away from her snowy brow,
her long black lashes hiding her love-lit eyes swept her rosy cheeks,
and her light step dashed the dew from the grass in the garden, while
the blossoms fell from the boughs to kiss her shoulders as she passed.

And one eventide, David, walking upon the roof of his palace, saw her
bathing. And the last red rays of the sinking sun touched her softly
and changed her into a perfect statue of warm pink marble, and David's
soul was ravished by her beauty; and with the impetuosity of a king
and the reckless passion of a lover he sought to beguile her. And
Bath-sheba, flattered by the preference of the mighty King, allured by
imperial grandeur and enticed by royal appeals, tried to forget the
husband, who was off to the wars and away, and who had in the first
flush of youth won her by his love, his "brow of truth" and a soul
untouched by sin--but the King--the King, the pomp and the power!

Ambition was roused in her heart and she wanted to be clothed in the
purple and fine linen of majesty, and to wear a jeweled crown upon her
brow. And so she forgot a husband's love, a wife's honor, a woman's
virtue, and while angels wept and devils laughed, the memory of Uriah
vanished from her mind as a star vanishes before the fire-bursting
storm-cloud.

Then black-browed conspiracy and red-handed murder, the boon
companions of unholy love, whispered in their ears; and though a
vision of Uriah often rose unbidden and unwelcome before her, it was
dimmed and obscured by the glitter of jewels and the gleam of costly
array, that should yet flash upon her arms and throat and clothe her
limbs.

So David sent for Uriah (we presume with the consent, perhaps at the
instigation of Bath-sheba, for there is no wickedness like the
wickedness of an ambitious, faithless wife), honored and feasted him,
and the favored young man, happily unconscious of his wife's
treachery, perhaps dreaming bright waking dreams of the wealth, fame
and power he would win to lay at Bath-sheba's feet, felt himself
honored by being made a special envoy to carry a letter from the King
to his greatest general, Joab--and in it the King wrote:

"Set ye Uriah in the fore-front of the hottest battle, and retire ye
from him, that he may be smitten and die;" and Joab "assigned Uriah
unto a place where he knew the valiant men were," and he was sm