When Saul heard this he took comfort. A longing and desire for music, like water to one athirst, had sprung up within him, as it were a gourd in the night. He bade his physicians delay not a moment but send at once to Bethlehem and bring this young shepherd in.

When these messengers came to the house of Jesse and told him their errand, he was troubled. It pleased him that David should have been well spoken of to the king, but three of his sons had already been taken to serve in Saul’s army, and he feared that he might now be deprived of his youngest son also.

None the less he made ready a present for the king, the best he could afford. He saddled an ass, and laded it with ten loaves of wheaten bread, a skin of wine from his own vineyard and the choicest of his kids. With a change of raiment besides, and all that he would need during his absence, David set out next day. He kissed his father, and bade him farewell, and hastened away.

He was young, the day was sweet and early, the way new to him; and he soon thought no more of the fears and misgivings that had troubled his dreams the night before. He watched the morning colours in the sky as though they were a forecast of the future, and his ass, though dumb, was far better than no company at all.

It was dark when he reached his journey’s end, and when the king’s physicians had spoken with him privily and warned him of the condition of the king, he was brought into Saul’s presence. And he took with him his nine-stringed harp.

The royal tent was lit only by the single flame of a lamp which with a cruse of water stood at the bed’s head. In the wafting of the air it cast distorted shadows into the gloom beyond. The king lay stretched out upon a low and heavy bedstead, a purple coverlet over him, a pillow of goat’s hair for his bolster, and his arms relaxed at his sides. His wasted brows were drawn with anguish, and his face wan. At sound of David’s entrance he turned his head, and his dark, brilliant, fever-haunted eyes rested upon the clear young face and found peace there. His heart went out to him; he smiled, and sighed.

David knelt before him, and with a gesture Saul bade him rise and play. So night after night David shared Saul’s solitude, broken only by the occasional entry of one of his servants or physicians, until in the cold small hours of morning he himself grew faint for want of sleep, his plucking fingers loosened upon his harp-strings, and his head nodded where he sat.

Then of a sudden Saul, muttering restlessly in his slumber, would awake, start up from his bed, and stare in empty terror into the gloom, as if in challenge of some appalling phantom before his very eyes. He would thrust out his hand, seize upon the spear which stood with his armour at his bedside, and sit trembling and aghast, or be filled with a blind and speechless fury.

And David would speak and reassure him, ‘Alas, my lord, be not dismayed; it is I, David.’

He would touch the king’s hand to prove that he was near and real, and then would return to his playing. And Saul would be satisfied. He would fix his eyes on him and watch him like a child, and drink in with his music the vision of his face. Even in his darkest moments David had no fear of the king. At that time there was only love between them.

The music he conjured from his harp-strings gave speech to thoughts and feelings no words of his could tell. For alone with his sheep he had been wont, though unwittingly, to let the peaceful scenes stretched out before him well into his mind, to be in memory transmuted into music. And for song he had taught himself melodies and laments so ancient that even the children of the Hebrews had been lulled to sleep with them when their fathers were in thrall to Pharaoh, and Goshen was their land of bondage. So Saul’s nightmare terrors and evil imaginations would ebb out of his mind and pass away. He would sink back exhausted upon his bed, and fall into a heavy sleep, his haggard face so cold and changeless that it might be that of the dead, or hewn out of stone.