"What is it?" asked the Woodman again.
But the Lion would answer nothing; and do what he would, the man could not get him to say another word. So he left him for that day, and went home.
For several days after, the man did the same thing; and gradually the Lion got better. At last one day, when the Lion was quite well again, the man said to him—
"Tell me, good friend Lion, what it is that has made you so silent and gloomy of late?"
Then answered the Lion, "O Woodman, I will tell you. When you were ill, I swam a swift river and faced death, all for your sake; I came into your house when you lay deserted, and licked your body, and took the fever which you had into my veins; and this wound which you see, I received from a crocodile as I was swimming across on my way back. But you received me with scorn, and turned away your face in disgust. The fever is gone, and this wound (as you see) is healed; but the wound in my heart can never heal. You are no true friend; and from henceforth our ways lie apart."
The man was ashamed of his unkindness, but it was too late, for, as the poet says—
"Who snaps the thread of friendship, never more
Can join it as it once was joined before."
