the flight than in the battle for there fell about twenty thousand that
day. But all David's men ran violently upon Absalom, for he was easily
known by his beauty and tallness. He was himself also afraid lest his
enemies should seize on him, so he got upon the king's mule, and fled;
but as he was carried with violence, and noise, and a great motion, as
being himself light, he entangled his hair greatly in the large boughs
of a knotty tree that spread a great way, and there he hung, after a
surprising manner; and as for the beast, it went on farther, and that
swiftly, as if his master had been still upon his back; but he, hanging
in the air upon the boughs, was taken by his enemies. Now when one of
David's soldiers saw this, he informed Joab of it; and when the general
said, that if he had shot at and killed Absalom, he would have given him
fifty shekels,--he replied, "I would not have killed my master's son
if thou wouldst have given me a thousand shekels, especially when he
desired that the young man might be spared in the hearing of us all."
But Joab bade him show him where it was that he saw Absalom hang;
whereupon he shot him to the heart, and slew him, and Joab's
armor-bearers stood round the tree, and pulled down his dead body, and
cast it into a great chasm that was out of sight, and laid a heap
of stones upon him, till the cavity was filled up, and had both the
appearance and the bigness of a grave. Then Joab sounded a retreat, and
recalled his own soldiers from pursuing the enemy's army, in order to
spare their countrymen.

3. Now Absalom had erected for himself a marble pillar in the king's
dale, two furlongs distant from Jerusalem, which he named Absalom's
Hand, saying, that if his children were killed, his name would remain by
that pillar; for he had three sons and one daughter, named Tamar, as
we said before, who when she was married to David's grandson, Rehoboam,
bare a son, Abijah by name, who succeeded his father in the kingdom;
but of these we shall speak in a part of our history which will be more
proper. After the death of Absalom, they returned every one to their own
homes respectively.

4. But now Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok the high priest, went to Joab, and
desired he would permit him to go and tell David of this victory, and
to bring him the good news that God had afforded his assistance and his
providence to him. However, he did not grant his request, but said to
him, "Wilt thou, who hast alway