For a while David remained with Saul and Jonathan and as all went on peacefully, he and Jonathan had many happy hours together. Then there was war again with the Philistines, and David was sent out to fight them, and was again victorious over them, slaying them with such a great slaughter that those who remained alive fled from him, in fear and dismay. And although Saul was glad of David's victory over the enemies of Israel, the old jealousy of his young and powerful rival again overcame him and he had or pretended to have one of his old attacks of rage, and as in old times, David was called to soothe his inflamed spirit. But while he was playing, Saul was filled with jealous fury, and again hurled his spear at the young musician, and again David slipped aside and escaped it, and the spear hit the wall instead of his body--then he fled to his own house, more worried than he had ever been before; for now he saw clearly that Saul would never give up his purpose to kill him. This he told his wife, Michal, who knew her father's cruel, jealous disposition, even better than Saul did, and was much alarmed for her husband's safety. That night, Saul, following out his determination, to rid himself of David, sent watchers to guard David's house and make sure that he did not escape in the night, and though they did not go into the house to kill him at once, because of an old Oriental superstition that only evil would come to those who entered a home by night, they planned to enter at daybreak and arrest him. Michal, with a woman's keen instinct, when she saw the messengers outside, guessed their purpose and at once she said to David: "If thou save not thy life to-night, to-morrow, thou shalt be slain," and then she told David of her plan to save him, which he thought was a good one. After a hasty farewell, she assisted her husband to escape through a window on the opposite side of the house from where the king's messengers were crouched, and David under cover of the darkness crept stealthily away and escaped once more from Saul's hand. When she had seen him creep away in the darkness, Michal went back into the house and dressing up an image, as if it were a man, she laid it in David's bed, and covered it, head and all, with a long thick coverlet, and at dawn when Saul's messengers forced an entrance, demanding David, Michal answered: "He is sick." The men went away and told Saul this, but he did not believe it, and sent them back to bring David to the palace in his bed, if they found him too sick to walk, and it must have been a moment of triumph for Michal, who had worked so hard to save her husband's life, and who knew that he was, even then, far away, when she led Saul's messengers to the bed, where they found, not their victim, but only an image.