He rushed past his lair, as though he dare not look his wife in the face. He did not come home until late at night.
“Are you still alive?” asked the lioness, scoffing. “The whole forest believes you dead. And what about Two-Legs?”
“I have killed one of his young,” answered the lion, angrily.
“What’s the good of that?” asked she.
Then he caught her a box on the ear the like of which she had never had before, lay down and stared before him with his yellow eyes.
But the animals in the forest wondered and whispered to one another:
“The lion is afraid.... The lion runs away from Two-Legs.”
“Didn’t I tell you so?” said the ox. “We ought to have killed him then and there.”
“Ah, yes!” said the horse. “If the lion had only taken our advice!”