Now the house was as dark as the black night, except where a dim light showed the witch’s face and deepened the surrounding gloom. And suddenly the witch cried with a loud voice, and put her hands before her eyes; and Saul said, “What do you see?” And she said, “I see a god ascending out of the earth.” And Saul said, “What form is he of?” And the woman answered, “An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle.” When Saul heard that, he bowed down with his face to the ground. “What does he say?” said he. In the darkness of the room, and in the confusion and mystery of the moment, Saul knew not whether the answering voice was that of the witch or of the prophet. But there was a Voice. And the Voice said, “Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?” And Saul answered, “I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war upon me to destroy me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams: therefore have I called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.” And the Voice said, “Wherefore dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, therefore he hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand and given it to David. And to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.” Then Saul fell straightway all along upon the earth, and was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel; and there was no strength in him, because he had eaten nothing all the day nor all the night. And the witch said, “Let me set a morsel of food before thee, that thou mayest have strength when thou goest on thy way.” But Saul said, “I will not eat.” At last, however, he got up from the floor and sat upon the bed, and ate, he and his two companions, and went away into the night. And on the morrow it happened as the Voice had said. The Philistines fought and the men of Israel fled and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. As for Saul and his sons, the archers hit them with their arrows; so they died, the king and his three sons, that same day together. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Garden of Eden, by George Hodges