No touch in the history of the minstrel king David gives us a more warm
and personal feeling towards him than his longing for the water of the
well of Bethlehem. Standing as the incident does in the summary of the
characters of his mighty men, it is apt to appear to us as if it had
taken place in his latter days; but such is not the case, it befell
while he was still under thirty, in the time of his persecution by Saul.
It was when the last attempt at reconciliation with the king had been
made, when the affectionate parting with the generous and faithful
Jonathan had taken place, when Saul was hunting him like a partridge on
the mountains on the one side, and the Philistines had nearly taken his
life on the other, that David, outlawed, yet loyal at the heart, sent
his aged parents to the land of Moab for refuge, and himself took up his
abode in the caves of the wild limestone hills that had become familiar
to him when he was a shepherd. Brave captain and Heaven-destined king as
he was, his name attracted around him a motley group of those that
were in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the
'mighty men' whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in that army
with which David was to fulfill the ancient promises to his people.
There were his three nephews, Joab, the ferocious and imperious, the
chivalrous Abishai, and Asahel the fleet of foot; there was the warlike
Levite Benaiah, who slew lions and lionlike men, and others who, like
David himself, had done battle with the gigantic sons of Anak. Yet even
these valiant men, so wild and lawless, could be kept in check by the
voice of their young captain; and, outlaws as they were, they spoiled no
peaceful villages, they lifted not their hands against the persecuting
monarch, and the neighboring farms lost not one lamb through their
violence. Some at least listened to the song of their warlike minstrel:
'Come, ye children, and hearken to me,
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is he that lusteth to live,
And would fain see good days?
Let him refrain his tongue from evil
And his lips that they speak no guile,
Let him eschew evil and do good,
Let him seek peace and ensue it.'
With such strains as these, sung to his harp, the warrior gained the
hearts of his men to enthusiastic love, and gathered followers on all
sides, among them eleven fierce men of Gad, with faces like lions and
feet swift as roes, who swam the Jordan in time of flood, and fought
their way to him, putting all enemies in the valleys to flight.
But the Eastern sun burnt on the bare rocks. A huge fissure, opening
in the mountain ridge, encumbered at the bottom with broken rocks,
with precipitous banks, scarcely affording a foothold for the wild
goats--such is the spot where, upon a cleft on the steep precipice,
still remain the foundations of the 'hold', or tower, believed to have
been the David's retreat, and near at hand is the low-browed entrance
of the galleried cave alternating between narrow passages and spacious
halls, but all oppressively hot and close. Waste and wild, without
a bush or a tree, in the feverish atmosphere of Palestine, it was a
desolate region, and at length the wanderer's heart fainted in him, as
he thought of his own home, with its rich and lovely terraced slopes,
green with wheat, trellised with vines, and clouded with grey olive, and
of the cool cisterns of living water by the gate of which he loved to
sing--
'He shall feed me in a green pasture,
And lead me forth beside the waters of comfort'.
His parched longing lips gave utterance to the sigh, 'Oh that one would
give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is by the
gate?'
Three of his brave men, apparently Abishai, Benaiah, and Eleazar, heard
the wish. Between their mountain fastness and the dearly loved spring
lay the host of the Philistines; but their love for their leader feared
no enemies. It was not only water that he longed for, but the water from
the fountain which he had loved in his childhood. They descended from
their chasm, broke through the midst of the enemy's army, and drew the
water from the favorite spring, bearing it back, once again through the
foe, to the tower upon the rock! Deeply moved was their chief at this
act of self-devotion--so much moved that the water seemed to him to be
too sacred to be put to his own use. 'May God forbid it me that I should
do this thing. Shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their
lives in jeopardy, for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought
it?' And as a hallowed and precious gift, he poured out unto the Lord
the water obtained at the price of such peril to his followers.
In later times we meet with another hero, who by his personal qualities
inspired something of the same enthusiastic attachment as did David, and
who met with an adventure somewhat similar, showing the like nobleness
of mind on the part of both leader and followers.
It was Alexander of Macedon, whose character as a man, with all its dark
shades of violence, rage, and profanity, has a nobleness and sweetness
that win our hearts, while his greatness rests on a far broader basis
than that of his conquests, though they are unrivalled. No one else so
gained the love of the conquered, had such wide and comprehensive views
for the amelioration of the world, or rose so superior to the prejudice
of race; nor have any ten years left so lasting a trace upon the history
of the world as those of his career.
It is not, however, of his victories that we are here to speak, but of
his return march from the banks of the Indus, in BC 326, when he had
newly recovered from the severe wound which he had received under the
fig tree, within the mud wall of the city of the Malli. This expedition
was as much the expedition of a discoverer as the journey of a
conqueror: and, at the mouth of the Indus, he sent his ships to survey
the coasts of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, while he himself
marched along the shore of the province, then called Gedrosia, and now
Mekhran. It was a most dismal tract. Above towered mountains of reddish-
brown bare stone, treeless and without verdure, the scanty grass
produced in the summer being burnt up long before September, the month
of his march; and all the slope below was equally desolate slopes of
gravel. The few inhabitants were called by the Greeks fish-eaters and
turtle-eaters, because there was apparently, nothing else to eat; and
their huts were built of turtle shells.
The recollections connected with the region were dismal. Semiramis
and Cyrus were each said to have lost an army there through hunger and
thirst; and these foes, the most fatal foes of the invader, began to
attack the Greek host. Nothing but the discipline and all-pervading
influence of Alexander could have borne his army through. Speed was
their sole chance; and through the burning sun, over the arid rock,
he stimulated their steps with his own high spirit of unshrinking
endurance, till he had dragged them through one of the most rapid and
extraordinary marches of his wonderful career. His own share in their
privations was fully and freely taken; and once when, like the rest, he
was faint with heat and deadly thirst, a small quantity of water, won
with great fatigue and difficulty, was brought to him, he esteemed it
too precious to be applied to his own refreshment, but poured it forth
as a libation, lest, he said, his warriors should thirst the more
when they saw him drink alone; and, no doubt, too, because he felt the
exceeding value of that which was purchased by loyal love. A like story
is told of Rodolf of Hapsburgh, the founder of the greatness of Austria,
and one of the most open-hearted of men. A flagon of water was brought
to him when his army was suffering from severe drought. 'I cannot,'
he said, 'drink alone, nor can all share so small a quantity. I do not
thirst for myself, but for my whole army.'
Yet there have been thirsty lips that have made a still more trying
renunciation. Our own Sir Philip Sidney, riding back, with the mortal
hurt in his broken thigh, from the fight at Zutphen, and giving the
draught from his own lips to the dying man whose necessities were
greater than his own, has long been our proverb for the giver of that
self-denying cup of water that shall by no means lose its reward.
A tradition of an act of somewhat the same character survived in a
Slesvig family, now extinct. It was during the wars that ranged from
1652 to 1660, between Frederick III of Denmark and Charles Gustavus of
Sweden, that, after a battle, in which the victory had remained with the
Danes, a stout burgher of Flensborg was about to refresh himself, ere
retiring to have his wounds dressed, with a draught of beer from a
wooden bottle, when an imploring cry from a wounded Swede, lying on the
field, made him turn, and, with the very words of Sidney, 'Thy need
is greater than mine,' he knelt down by the fallen enemy, to pour the
liquor into his mouth. His requital was a pistol shot in the shoulder
from the treacherous Swede. 'Rascal,' he cried, 'I would have befriended
you, and you would murder me in return! Now I will punish you. I would
have given you the whole bottle; but now you shall have only half.'
And drinking off half himself, he gave the rest to the Swede. The king,
hearing the story, sent for the burgher, and asked him how he came to
spare the life of such a rascal.
'Sire,' said the honest burgher, 'I could never kill a wounded enemy.'
'Thou meritest to be a noble,' the king said, and created him one
immediately, giving him as armorial bearings a wooden bottle pierced
with an arrow! The family only lately became extinct in the person of an
old maiden lady.