REBELLION AND SORROW. 221

fight. That-charge Joab did not think it incumbent
upon him to attend to: he went straight to the place
where the prince was hanging, and shot him to the
heart. Then sounding the trumpet, he called the people
in from the pursuit. The war was at an end, now
Absalom was dead. Ahimaaz, the young priest I have
already spoken of, asked leave of Joab to carry the
tidings of the battle to David.

Marianne. I wonder at his making such a request; I
would not have liked to tell David that Absalom was
dead. Did Joab let him go?

Grandfather. Joab said to them, “This day thou
shalt bear no tidings, because the king’s son is dead.”
The captain then said to Cushi. “ Go, tell the king
what thou hast seen.” Cushi obeyed. Still Ahimaaz
persisted in his request, and Joab at last agreed to let
him go. They took different roads ; Cushi went by the
hill, Ahimaaz by the plain. Between the two gates of
Mahanaim, the outer and inner gate, David was sitting,
that as soon as possible he might hear the tidings
that came. The watchman on the tower called out that
he saw two men coming, both running along. “ The
running of the foremost, he said is like the running of
Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok.” “He is a good man,”
the king replied, “ and cometh with good tidings.” And
so he did, for his first exclamation was, “ All is well.”
Then falling down on his face he said, “ Blessed be the
Lord thy God, which hath delivered up the men that lift
up their hand against my lord the king.” David ques-