He bowed himself before the High Priest, and Eli lifted up his face as if to look at him, and said: ‘Tell me, my son, who art thou, and what news is this thou bringest; keep nothing back from me.’

And the Benjamite said: ‘I am he that hath escaped this day but only with his life from out of the battle. I am wounded to death. Woe, woe, my lord! The armies of Israel have been routed by the Philistines, and have been smitten with a terrible slaughter. When I left the battle they were fleeing in terror, every man for himself, and there was no hope left.’

Eli listened on, stark and motionless, and said nothing.

‘To thee, too, my lord, do I bring most grievous tidings,’ said the Benjamite, but his voice was faint. ‘Thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who were with the Ark in the ranks of the battle, are slain. And the Ark of God has been taken by the Philistines.’

When Eli heard that his two sons were slain, his body shook as if with palsy, but when he heard also that the Ark of the Lord had been taken, his senses left him. Darkness swept over his mind; and he fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy.

With their captives and their plunder the army of the Philistines returned in triumph into their own country. But of the spoil that they had captured from Israel the Ark of God was their supreme boast, and this the five lords gave for a trophy into the charge of the city of Ashdod, which with its gardens, its battlemented walls and towers lay, amid its dunes, but a little inland from the coast of the Great Sea, though the very site of it is now no more than a heap of shifting sand.

A tumultuous concourse of people filled the streets, shouting with joy and hooting insults against the Ark, as it was borne in through the gates of the temple of Dagon, and they surged in after it with such vehemence that some among them were flung to the ground and crushed and trampled to death. Since the day that Samson, the mighty champion of Israel, had been led blinded and helpless into Gaza, there had been no jubilation to compare with this. And the priests made sacrifice, chanting their hymns of praise and dancing in frenzy before the worshippers in the temple. They set up the Ark beneath the gloating image of the Fish God himself, as though his nostrils might snuff up the incense of their victory; and there it lay.