At the moment the tiger began to listen to the talking inside the cottage the old man was saying: “We not do fear thieves nor policemen, nor tigers nor demons, nor anything at all, unless it be the Lio.” There was something in the way he spoke the last words and in the way he stopped after saying them, which showed that he really was afraid of the Lio. The tiger, who had never heard of a Lio, wondered what it could be, so he lay down quietly outside the door to listen, hoping to hear more about the terrible beast which frightened people brave enough to fear neither tigers nor thieves nor demons. All was dark and the hill side was very still. Behind the cottage a thief, who had come to rob the lonely couple, was crouching close to the wall. He too heard the old man talking about the Lio and wondered what the terrible creature could be like. Presently he crept round the side of the cottage. The tiger noticed a sound coming moving through the darkness. It was the thief. Though he slipped along as quietly as a pussy cat the tiger heard him with his wonderful wild-beast’s ears. Dark as it was when the thief crept round to the front wall, he felt, rather than saw, that there was something lying beside the door of the little house. “Good luck!” he thought to himself. “This is the old man’s cow.” It was impossible to see, so he stole up gently to try to find out what the creature might be. He put out his hand to feel, and touched the tiger. In a moment he knew that this was no cow. Its hair was harsh and its muscles like iron bands. Could it be—surely it could not be—the dreadful creature of which he had just been hearing. Reckless as he was, the thief felt his heart stand still. Next moment he jumped to one side, climbed the wall of the cottage, and hid on the roof.
Meantime the tiger, making sure that the unseen thing, which had come upon him in the darkness, was nothing less than the Lio itself, got up and fled. He ran and he ran, until he met a deer in the forest. The deer drew respectfully to the side of the path, as in duty bound when meeting his betters. “Where does his Excellency come from in such a hurry?” he inquired in rather a timid voice.
“Oh! from nowhere, from nowhere at all,” answered the tiger, a little bit confused by what had just happened. Then he recovered himself and told the deer how a terrible beast, called the Lio, had touched him in the dark.
“A Lio, your Excellency! Why, I never even heard of a Lio,” said the deer in great surprise. “What is it like?”
“A Lio is very clever,” said the tiger; “it climbs houses and comes on you in the dark. If you would like to know more about it I will take you to where it is. Come, let us go together.”
“But the Lio will catch me, your Excellency, I am but a weak creature,” said the deer, drawing back a little, for he did not wish to be gobbled up. He never had known the tiger so quiet and polite before, and he could see by the gleam of the great green eyes, even in the dark, that his companion was turning his head every now and then, as if he thought the Lio might come gliding through the forest to spring upon them at any moment.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the tiger, growing braver at the thought of having a companion to go back with him, “I will take care of you.”
“But, your Excellency, the Lio will come and you will run away and leave me to be caught,” answered the deer.
“Oh, no, we can tie our tails together, and then it will be all right,” said the tiger. For you must know that at that time the deer’s tail was much longer than it is now.
“Tie our tails together and both get caught at once,” gasped the deer, so surprised that he forgot to be polite.