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man had a shepherd who had served him faithfully and honestly for many years. One day, as the shepherd was tending his sheep, he heard a hissing noise in the forest, and wondered what it could be. He went, therefore, into the wood in the direction of the sound, to learn what it was. There he saw that the dry grass and leaves had caught fire, and in the middle of a burning circle a snake was hissing. The shepherd stopped to see what the snake would do, for the fire was burning all around it, and the flames approached it nearer and nearer every moment. Then the snake cried from amid the fire,—

"Oh, shepherd! for heaven's sake save me from this fire!"

The shepherd stretched out his crook over the flames to the snake, and the snake passed along it on to his hand,