u are saucy, Elephant. It would be well for you to think upon your
stupid brother there, who lies so stark under your nose, before you
trouble with your insolence one who slew him."

"Well, words never yet made a plantation; it is the handling of a hoe
that makes fields. See here, Ma Lion, if I talked to you all day I
could not make you wise. I will just turn my back to you. If you will
bite me, you will soon learn how weak you are."

The lioness, angered still more by the elephant's contempt, sprang at
his shoulders, and clung to him, upon which he rushed at a stout tree,
and pressing his shoulders against it, crushed the breath out of her
body, and she ceased her struggles. When he relaxed his pressure, the
body fell to the ground, and he knelt upon it, and kneaded it until
every bone was broken.

While the elephant was meditatively standing over the body, and thinking
what misfortunes happen to boasters, a man came along, carrying a spear,
and seeing that the elephant was unaware of his presence, he thought
what great luck had happened to him.

Said he, "Ah, what fine tusks he has. I shall be rich with them, and
shall buy slaves and cattle, and with these I will get a wife and a
farm," saying which he advanced silently, and when he was near enough,
darted his spear into a place behind the shoulder.

The elephant turned around quickly, and on beholding his enemy rushed
after and overtook him, and mauled him, until in a few moments he was a
mangled corpse.

Soon after a woman approached, and seeing four lions, one elephant, and
her husband dead, she raised up her hands wonderingly and cried, "How
did all this happen?" The elephant, hearing her voice, came from behind
a tree, with a spear quivering in his side, and bleeding profusely. At
the sight of him the woman turned round to fly, but the elephant cried
out to her, "Nay, run not, woman, for I can do you no harm. The happy
days in the woods are ended for all the tribes. The memory of this
scene will never be forgotten. Animals will be henceforth at constant
war one with another. Lions will no more greet elephants, the buffaloes
will be shy, the rhinoceroses will live apart, and man when he comes
within the shadows will think of nothing else than his terrors, and he
will fancy an enemy in every shadow. I am sorely wounded, for thy man
stole up to my side and drove his spear into me, and soon I shall die."

When she had heard these words the woman h