SAUL AND SHIMEI.
Saul, sullen, gloomy, and chagrined, over his discomfiture recently experienced, is visited, in his self-imposed seclusion at home, by Shimei, who, always by nature antipathetic to Saul, hates him virulently now for the affront from him received publicly in the late council. Shimei exasperates Saul with sneering, pretended sympathy for him over his defeat at Stephen's hands; at the same time disclosing the plot he has himself concocted, involving subornation of perjury, with alleged connivance on the part of the Sanhedrim in general, for the stoning of Stephen. Shimei gone, Saul, in the open court of his dwelling, sits solitary, brooding in the depths of dejection over the fallen state of his fortunes.