at Abner; there was a strange influence in this young man that swept all doubts aside and prevailed over his own ripe judgment.

‘Go,’ he said, ‘and may the Lord be with thee.’

Then he bade his servants bring him his coat of mail and his helmet of bronze. ‘Thou shalt not venture out unarmed,’ he said.

There in the king’s tent David put on Saul’s coat of mail, and his helmet on his head, and girded Saul’s sword about the armour as he stood. And the king with his own hand aided him. But Saul was a man of a mighty stature; and thus armed, David essayed in vain to take a pace or two, hoping that he might become accustomed to the burden, for he had never worn the like before. But he could not. He turned with a sigh to the king, and entreated that the armour should be put off him.

He said to the king: ‘It was in truth a grace and kindness that my lord should give me his armour, but I cannot wear it, for I am not used to it. Be it the king’s will that I go to meet Goliath as I am.’

So he went out of Saul’s tent with nothing in his hand but his shepherd’s staff or club and his sling. When he had gone, Saul turned to Abner, the commander-in-chief of his armies, who had watched all that had passed. He asked him, ‘Abner, whose son is this youth?’

And Abner said: ‘As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.’

And Saul bade him make inquiry and discover from whence he came. Then the king and Abner with their officers followed after David to see what would come of his ordeal.

And David, having left the king, made his way back between the clustering tents until he had come out beyond the fringes of the camp. As he continued on his way down into the valley he came to the brook of water that flowed between the rocks in the ravine, warbling amid its stones, and gleaming in its blue in the sunbeams. It was as though he moved in a dream, but a dream marvellously clear, and with all his senses alert. He stooped and chose from out of the brook’s cold waters five of the smoothest pebbles on its bed, and in so doing saw the image of his own face reflected there, and it was as though he had never seen its like before. He put the pebbles into the scrip or shepherd’s bag he carried, then rose and went on his way.

At the shout that had gone up from the men of Israel at sight of him, the giant who had turned back towards the Philistine camp wheeled and looked about, and knitting his shag eyebrows in the glare of the sun, fixed his stare on David as he rose from the brook-side and, leaping from boulder to boulder, came on down into the valley. Whereat the champion called back a word over his shoulder to his shield- bearer, and advanced to meet him.

And David, his sling in his hand, the sling with which he was wont to drive off the smaller beasts that pestered his flocks, drew near. The men of Israel fell silent, and the armies, clustered black on either height, watched. In the hush of the valley the chirr of the grass-hoppers in the heat of the morning, and the song of the brook-water brawling in its rocky channel, were the only sounds to be heard.

Astounded and rejoiced that after these many fruitless days there had at last come forth a man of Israel valiant enough to take up his challenge, Goliath snatched his shield from the Philistine who carried it, and stood in wait.

But when he could see his foe clearly and what manner of champion this was, little more than a lad, fair and tanned with the sun, in shepherd’s clothes and unarmed, his voice pealed out in mocking laughter, and he cursed him by his gods.