'Long-tried friends are friends to cleave to—never leave thou these i' the lurch:—
What man shuns the fire as sinful for that once it burned a church?'
'That is written of discarding old servants, may it please your Majesty,' observed Damanaka; 'and this Bull is quite a stranger,'
'Wondrous strange!' replied the Lion; 'when I have advanced and protected him that he should plot against me!'
'Your Majesty,' said the Jackal, 'knows what has been written—
'Raise an evil soul to honor, and his evil bents remain;
Bind a cur's tail ne'er so straightly, yet it curleth up again.'
'How, in sooth, should Trust and Honor change the evil nature's root?
Though one watered them with nectar, poison-trees bear deadly fruit.'
I have now at least warned your Majesty: if evil comes, the fault is not mine,'
'It will not do to condemn the Bull without inquiry,' mused the King; then he said aloud, 'shall we admonish him, think you, Damanaka?'
'No, no, Sire!' exclaimed the Jackal, eagerly; 'that would spoil all our precautions—
'Safe within the husk of silence guard the seed of counsel so
That it break not—being broken, then the seedling will not grow,'
What is to be done must be done with despatch. After censuring his treason, would your Majesty still trust the traitor?—