3
Two-Legs slept restlessly that night.
He tossed about on his bed of skins and, when at last he fell asleep, Trust began to bark so loudly that Two-Legs had to get up and see what was happening. He had closed up the hole through which Trust used to get out, because the goose had lately escaped that way and fallen a prey to the fox.
“What is it, Trust?” he asked.
The dog kept on barking and leaping up against him. Two-Legs opened a little shutter and looked out and listened. But there was nothing to see. Then he told the dog to lie down and went back to bed. But now he heard the horse kicking in the stable and the ox began to low and the poultry to cackle. There was no hearing a word for the noise. He had to go out again and found all the animals shaking, as though greatly frightened. The horse stood in a violent sweat and the hens and the ducks and geese fluttered anxiously round and round their roost.
“What can it be?” he said.
He opened the door and stepped out into the night, unarmed and naked, as he had risen from his bed. At that moment, there was a rustling in the bushes. The lion leapt forward, but Two-Legs just had time to spring back into the house and bolt the door behind him.
He stood for a moment in great alarm and did not know what to do.
Through a little hole in the door, he saw the lion lying outside in the bushes, with his eyes fixed on the door, ready to leap again. The yellow eyes glittered with rage. Two-Legs understood that the fight was now to come that had been so long delayed.
He thought first of waking his sons, slipping out through the other door and attacking the lion in the rear. But they slept in different parts of the house; and the day was already breaking in the east; and, while he was gone to fetch them, one of the family might easily go out and fall a prey to the king of the forest.
While he stood and reflected, his fear left him.
He considered he was man enough to kill his foe unaided. He silently took the best two of his spears, carefully felt the edges, drew a deep breath and then opened the door.
The lion was not there.
Two-Legs looked from one side to the other and could not discover him. But he was an old, experienced hunter and did not doubt but that the lion was lurking in ambush. So he stood quietly in the doorway, with every muscle taut, ready for the fight that must come.
Then he heard a soft rustling in the bushes and, at that moment, he saw the animal’s eyes there among the leaves. He knew there was no time to lose: if the lion sprang first, it was too late.
He flung one of his spears and struck the lion in the eye. The lion uttered a roar of rage; and then the other spear pierced his heart.
All the inmates of the house were now out of bed and came running up.
There lay the dead lion, a great and splendid sight. Trust barked at him and wanted to bite him, but Two-Legs drove him away:
“After all,” he said, “he was king of the forest. But now let it be declared all over the earth that the lion is dead and that the realm is mine.”
Then they stripped the lion’s hide and hung it on a tall pole, which they set up in the middle of the field, so that it could be seen from far and wide.
“The lion is slain!” cried the sparrow, from door to door. “Two-Legs has murdered the king of the forest. His skin is hanging on a pole outside the house: I saw it myself.”
Then all crowded up and saw it. From the edge of the forest, full of fear they peeped at Two-Legs’ house and the birds stared down from the sky.
“And now all is over,” said the stag.
And so it was.