Some time after, the Lion, having made great havoc on the cattle of a neighbouring village, was snoring away in his den after a heavy meal. The village hunters approached with the object of surrounding him and putting an end to his depredations.
The Fly saw them, and hurrying into the den, bit the Lion. He started up with a roar as before, and cried: "Villain, you will get no pardon this time!"
"Sire," said the Fly, "the village hunters are on their way to your den; you can't tarry a moment here without being surrounded and killed."
"Saviour of my life!" cried the lion as he ran up the mountain. "There is nothing like forgiving, for it enables the humblest to help the highest."
The Sunling
In the good old days a Clown in the East, on a visit to a city kinsman, while at dinner pointed to a burning candle and asked what it was. The city man said, in jest, it was a Sunling, or one of the children of the sun.
The Clown thought that it was something rare; so he waited for an opportunity, and hid it in a chest of drawers close by. Soon the chest caught fire, then the curtains by its side, then the room, then the whole house.
After the flames had been put down, the city man and the Clown went into the burnt building to see what remained. The Clown turned over the embers of the chest of drawers. The city man asked what he was seeking for. The Clown said: "It is in this chest that I hid the bright Sunling; I wish to know if he has survived the flames."
"Alas," said the city man, who now found out the cause of all the mischief, "Never jest with fools!"
The Despot and the Wag