But O strange event! O remarkable circumstance! O extraordinary coincidence, which I am sure none of you could _by any possibility_ have divined! When the lions came to Rosalba, instead of devouring her with their great teeth, it was with kisses they gobbled her up! They licked her pretty feet, they nuzzled their noses in her lap, they moo’d, they seemed to say, “Dear, dear sister, don’t you recollect your brothers in the forest?” And she put her pretty white arms round their tawny necks, and kissed them. [Illustration] King Padella was immensely astonished. The Count Hogginarmo was extremely disgusted. “Pooh!” the Count cried. “Gammon!” exclaimed his Lordship. “These lions are tame beasts come from Wombwell’s or Astley’s. It is a shame to put people off in this way. I believe they are little boys dressed up in doormats. They are no lions at all.” “Ha!” said the King, “you dare to say ‘gammon’ to your Sovereign, do you? These lions are no lions at all, aren’t they? Ho! my beef-eaters! Ho! my bodyguard! Take this Count Hogginarmo and fling him into the circus! Give him a sword and buckler, let him keep his armor on, and his weather-eye out and fight these lions.” The haughty Hogginarmo laid down his opera-glass, and looked scowling round at the King and his attendants. “Touch me not, dogs!” he said, “or by St. Nicholas the Elder, I will gore you! Your Majesty thinks Hogginarmo is afraid? No, not of a hundred thousand lions! Follow me down into the circus, King Padella, and match thyself against one of yon brutes. Thou darest not. Let them both come on, then!” And opening a grating of the box, he jumped lightly down into the circus. _Wurra wurra wurra wur-aw-aw-aw!!!_ In about two minutes The Count Hogginarmo was GOBBLED UP by those lions, bones, boots, and all, and There was an End of him At this, the King said, “Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won’t eat that young woman—” “Let her off!—let her off!” cried the crowd. “NO!” roared the King. “Let the beef-eaters go down and chop her into small pieces. If the lions defend her, let the archers shoot them to death. That hussy shall die in tortures!” “A-a-ah!” cried the crowd. “Shame! shame!” “Who dares cry out shame?” cried the furious potentate (so little can tyrants command their passions). “Fling any scoundrel who says a word down among the lions!” I warrant you there was a dead silence then, which was broken by a Pang arang pang pangkarangpang, and a Knight and a Herald rode in at the further end of the circus: the Knight, in full armor, with his vizor up, and bearing a letter on the point of his lance.