ng formed the
design of making themselves masters of the city, waited until the
people, attracted by curiosity to see the execution, should have gone
out of it. They hastily quitted the ambuscade in which they were
concealed, fell upon the guard, and dispersed it. All those who
endeavoured to defend it either fell by the sword or were made
prisoners; not one escaped except the unhappy slave who was about to
suffer an ignominious death.

The enemy, dreading the approach of the King, then withdrew to a
distance in order to increase their forces, carrying with them the
booty they had got, and deferred to another time the consummation of
their enterprise.

Meanwhile, the slave, delivered from his chains by the hands of the
enemy, and still fearing lest people should be dispatched to pursue
him, gained the country, and walked day and night without stopping. At
length, overcome with fatigue, he stopped under the shade of a laurel,
which, from its size and height, appeared coeval with the world, and
sat down. Opposite to this tree, and very near it, was the entrance of
a dark cave; two torches threw a dreadful light around it, without
altogether dispelling its darkness. His attention was fixed with
astonishment on these objects, which inspired him with terror, when he
thought he observed these two lights move and advance towards him.
These bright fires were nothing but the glaring eyes of a monstrous
lion, which came out of the cave and slowly approached the unhappy
slave, who had nothing with which he could defend himself. The animal
seized him, and, without hurting him, carried him into the cave. He
instantly went out of it again, tore down the enormous laurel under
which the man had been formerly seated, and, having placed it at the
mouth of the cave in order to shut up its passage, ran into the desert
in search of its mate, whom the need of food for their whelps had
carried far from their common haunt.

The mouth of this cave, shut up by the trunk of the tree, was
inaccessible to all human power. However, there was still sufficient
light left for the slave to view the inside of this dreadful
habitation, to distinguish its inhabitants, and to see there the
fragments of bones and food with which the ground was covered. He saw
likewise two young lions couching on a heap of moss, who were not
frightened by his presence. In an opposite corner he perceived a heap
of human bones, the sad remains of the unfortunate whom the sa