Page:Three hundred Aesop's fables (Townshend).djvu/123

Rh The Dogs listened favourably to these proposals, and, entering the den of the Wolves, they were set upon and torn to pieces.

A finding a lion's cub asleep gored him to death with his horns. The Lioness came up, and bitterly lamented the death of her whelp. A Wild-boar Hunter seeing her distress, stood afar off, and said to her, "Think how many men there are who have reason to lament the loss of their children, whose deaths have been caused by you."

A skilful Bowman went to the mountains in search of game. All the beasts of the forest fled at his approach. The Lion alone challenged him to combat. The Bowman immediately let fly an arrow, and said to the Lion: "I send thee my messenger, that from him thou mayest learn what I myself shall be when I assail thee." The Lion, thus wounded, rushed away in great fear, and on a Fox exhorting him to be of good courage, and not to run away at the first attack, he replied: "You counsel me in vain; for if he sends so fearful a messenger, how shall I abide the attack of the man himself?"

A man who can strike from a distance is no pleasant neighbour.