Lord's spirit was not with him. He tried to seek the Lord through the
priests, and through dreams, but the Lord answered him not. Then he
went to a witch by night, and asked her to bring up the spirit of
Samuel. The witch could not bring up Samuel, but the Lord sent him to
speak to Saul, and the woman cried out with terror when she saw the
prophet of the Lord, and knew also that it was the King who had called
for him.

"I am sore distressed," said Saul, "and God is departed from me. What
shall I do?"

Then Samuel told him plainly that the kingdom was taken from him and
given to David, and that on the next day he and his sons should fall in
battle, and the Israelites into the hands of the Philistines.

Saul, forsaken and despairing, fell to the earth fainting, but was
revived by the woman, who gave him food so that he went away through
the dark to the camp of Israel.

In the battle of the next day the Philistines conquered. The three
sons of Saul were slain, and Saul himself, when chased by the
Philistines, fell upon his own sword and died.

When a messenger brought news of the battle to David he rent his
clothes for grief, and in the chant of lamentation that he made, he
mourned for his faithful friend Jonathan, and had no word of blame for
his enemy Saul, neither did he triumph over him.

CHAPTER XXIII.

EVERY INCH A KING.

After Saul's death David came back to live with his own people, for he
was of the tribe of Judah. He went to Hebron, the old home of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, for the Lord had told him to go there, and the men of
his tribe came to Hebron and anointed him king. The other tribes did
not come, for Saul's son and the captain of his host, Abner, were still
holding the kingdom. But when both were killed by an enemy, then all
the other tribes came to Hebron and made a league with him, so seven
years after Saul's death David became king over all Israel. He was
then thirty years old and his reign lasted forty years.

Then David began to establish the kingdom. There was a rocky height
not far from Hebron with a valley all around it that was still held by
the Jebusites, one of the tribes of Canaan that the Lord said must not
be left in the land. The city was Jerusalem, and the stronghold was
Zion, and close by Zion was the mount to which Abraham had once gone to
offer up Isaac. David wanted this stronghold for the chief city of the
kingdom, and so he took it, and it became the cit