Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/247

Rh and Aliena; and when they answered him, he told them this story:

He was the cruel Oliver whom Orlando had described to them, and, driven forth by Duke Frederick to seek his brother, he had come at last to the forest of Arden. Worn out with fatigue, he lay down to sleep under the shade of a tree, and so Orlando came upon him, as he lay stretched in slumber. At that very moment a snake, ugly and venomous, had coiled about the sleeper’s neck, ready to strike him with deadly fangs. In the thicket close behind him lurked a lioness, her eyes fixed on the sleeping man, waiting for some movement to prove he was living, before she seized him as her prey.

All this Orlando saw, and for a moment the temptation assailed him to leave this brother, his enemy and tormentor, to his fate. But a nobler feeling triumphed; and while the snake, frightened at the lioness, uncoiled and sped into the bushes, Orlando attacked the beast and slew her. Then falling on the neck of his awakened brother, who saw the generous deed, they wept in brotherly affection and mutual forgiveness.

All this Oliver told with an eloquence which moved the sympathetic Celia to tears; and then drawing forth a bloody handkerchief which