ed therefore to run away from my master. If I am taken
again, I know that I shall be punished with a cruel death; but it is
better to die at once than to live in misery. If I escape, I must betake
myself to deserts and woods, inhabited only by wild beasts; but they
cannot use me more cruelly than I have been used by my fellow-creatures.
Therefore I will rather trust myself with them than continue to be a
miserable slave."

Having formed this resolution, he took an opportunity of leaving his
master's house, and hid himself in a thick forest, which was at some
miles' distance from the city. But here the unhappy man found that he
had only escaped from one kind of misery to experience another. He
wandered about all day through a vast and trackless wood, where his
flesh was continually torn by thorns and brambles. He grew hungry, but
could find no food in this dreary solitude. At length he was ready to
die with fatigue, and lay down in despair in a large cavern which he
found by accident.

This unfortunate man had not lain long quiet in the cavern, before he
heard a dreadful noise, which seemed to be the roar of some wild beast,
and terrified him very much. He started up with a design to escape and
had already reached the mouth of the cave when he saw coming towards him
a lion of prodigious size, who prevented any possibility of retreat. The
unfortunate man then believed his destruction to be inevitable; but, to
his great astonishment, the beast advanced towards him with a gentle
pace, without any mark of enmity or rage, and uttered a kind of mournful
voice, as if he demanded the assistance of the man.

Androcles, who was naturally of a resolute disposition, acquired courage
from this circumstance, to examine his monstrous guest, who gave him
sufficient leisure for that purpose. He saw, as the lion approached him,
that he seemed to limp upon one of his legs and that the foot was
extremely swelled as if it had been wounded. Acquiring still more
fortitude from the gentle demeanor of the beast, he advanced up to him
and took hold of the wounded paw, as a surgeon would examine a patient.
He then perceived that a thorn of uncommon size had penetrated the ball
of the foot and was the occasion of the swelling and lameness he had
observed. Androcles found that the beast, far from resenting this
familiarity, received it with the greatest gentleness and seemed to
invite him by his blandishments to proceed. He therefore extracted the