“I like not this imprisonment,” said the prince, “and shall only forbear forcing a retreat a short time longer. I am determined to try my chance of escape while my strength remains unabated.” Mahmood, however, prevailed upon his impatient and daring master to await the issue of the second beast’s approach, before he rashly determined upon an encounter, which it was now apprehended must infallibly terminate in the death of each of them. The lioness advanced eagerly, with her ears erected; and having reached her cubs, she turned them over for a moment with her paw, and, instantly perceiving they were dead, rushed towards a tree that grew near, sprang upon the trunk, and, stripping off the bark, began to tear it in pieces with the greatest violence. She now united her roars with those of her consort; then fixing her eyes upon the den in which she had deposited her young, bounded with foaming jaws towards the opening. Infuriated by opposition, she darted to and fro before the cave, springing at the trees, fixing her claws in the bark, and stripping their trunks bare to the root. Again she assaulted the stone which prevented entrance into her lair. While she was exhibiting these paroxysms of exasperation, the male, probably exhausted by its previous exertions, lay down beside the cubs, placed its two fore-paws upon their bodies, and resting its head upon the ground between them, kept up a low and continuous moan. The lioness, at length fatigued with her unavailing efforts to retaliate upon the destroyers of her young, walked deliberately up to the lion, and after again turning over the bodies of her cubs, she seized one of them in her mouth, and plunged with it into the thicket. The lion took up the body of the other in the same way, and immediately followed her. After a while the party in the cavern heard their roarings in the distance, and began now to think seriously of making good their retreat. “Our danger,” said the attendant, “is by no means at an end. Those animals are never-failing in their instincts; they know that the destroyers of their offspring are in this cave, and they will not quit the neighbourhood until they have had their revenge. Their vigilance is not to be evaded.” “But,” said Mahmood, “did you not hear their roarings in the distance?” “Nevertheless they will return immediately upon their steps. I have seen much of the habits of these ferocious creatures. They have disposed of the bodies of their dead cubs under some shrub or tuft of grass, and covered them with dried leaves; they are now on the watch for us; it is utterly impossible we should escape.” “They shall feel the sharpness of this sword’s point, however, if they do come upon us,” said the prince, rising, and stretching his cramped limbs. “Our chance will be greater beneath the fair light of the sky, with plenty of fighting room, than cooped up in this dismal den, where we can’t distinguish a lion from a shadow.”