ly,
step by step, as if it had a mind to steal off; but as soon as it got
to a greater distance, it began to bound away with great rapidity.

It is related that Geoffrey de la Tour, one of the knights that went
upon the first crusade to the Holy Land, heard, one day, as he rode
through a forest, a cry of distress. Hoping to rescue some unfortunate
sufferer, the knight rode boldly into the thicket; but what was his
astonishment, when he beheld a large lion, with a serpent coiled round
his body! To relieve the distressed was the duty of every knight;
therefore, with a single stroke of the sword, and regardless of the
consequences to himself, he killed the serpent, and extricated the
tremendous animal from his perilous situation.

From that hour the grateful creature constantly accompanied his
deliverer, whom he followed like a dog, and never displayed his natural
ferocity but at his command. At length, the crusade being terminated,
Sir Geoffrey prepared to set sail for Europe. He wished to take the
lion with him; but the master of the ship was unwilling to admit him on
board, and the knight was, therefore, obliged to leave him on the
shore. The lion, when he saw himself separated from his beloved master,
first began to roar hideously; then, seeing the ship moving off, he
plunged into the waves, and endeavored to swim after it. But all his
efforts were in vain; and at length, his strength being exhausted, he
sank, and the ocean ingulfed the noble animal, whose unshaken fidelity
deserved a better fate.

Some years since there was, in a menagerie at Cassel, in Germany, a
large lion, whose keeper was a woman, to whom the animal seemed most
affectionately attached. In order to amuse the company, this woman was
in the habit of putting her hands, and even her head, into the lion's
mouth, without experiencing the least injury. Upon one occasion,
however, having introduced her head, as usual, between the animal's
jaws, he made a sudden snap, and killed her on the spot.

Undoubtedly, this catastrophe was unintentional on the part of the
lion; probably the hair of the woman's head irritated his throat, so as
to make him sneeze or cough. This supposition is confirmed by the
subsequent conduct of the animal; for as soon as he perceived that he
had killed his attendant, the good-tempered, grateful creature
exhibited the signs of the deepest melancholy, laid himself down by the
side of the dead body, which he would not suffer to be