behaved as a
vain fellow rather than as a king; but she was abused, and he told her
that if she did not honour him, he would be honoured by her maids; and
this was true, for he never held back from a woman if she pleased him,
and of concubines had a score. My lord never sang, nor danced, nor
played; it was as much as he could do if he smiled. Would to God he
had smiled oftener; and yet if he could not laugh, he could love. Ah
me! how strait was his embrace. Was the love of that ruddy-faced,
light-minded, lying dancer a thousandth part of Saul's? If David had
loved Bathsbeba, would he have sought by the basest of deceit to force
Uriah to her after she had fallen, so that her son might be taken to be
his? And yet if Samuel had been alive, would he have cursed David as
he did my lord? I think not, for the sin and the lie with Bathsheba,
and the murder of Uriah, were not a crime like that of sparing the
Amalekite Agag. Nevertheless the Lord visited him also, and he tasted
the bitterness of revolt, for Absalom, his own son, turned against him,
and lay with his father's concubines in the sun in the sight of all
Israel, and sought his father's life. Why do I talk thus? I meant not
to talk of David, but of my lord. One word more. We never speak
without coming to that dreadful day. Your husband, Armoni, was
shamefully handed over to the Gibeonites and hung. May every messenger
of evil that does the bidding of Baal and Jehovah for ever follow the
man who consented to that deed because Saul had rooted out the
Gibeonites from the land in his zeal for the Lord. In his zeal for the
Lord! His zeal for the Israelitish Lord, and at Samuel's bidding! It
was not the desire of Saul to deal thus with the Gibeonites, for he,
the husband of a Horite, was never a fool in his wrath for his God; but
Samuel, whom he dreaded more than the Philistines, bade him. And the
plague came, and they said it was from the Lord, because of these
Gibeonites whom the Lord, through Samuel, had directed should be slain.
Ah me! I, a Horite, know not the ways of Jehovah. I sit here in
Jabesh and wait till I shall be with those whom I loved, with Saul,
Armoni, and his brother. I go down into the darkness with them, but it
will be better than the light. Maybe though dark I shall see them, and
be something of a queen--I, Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, queen of the
first king of Israel, he who has made it a nation.

MIRIAM'S SCHOOLING.

"_H