76 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



nephew has already acquired by his valorous ex- 

 ploits. They go to meet the monster. The first to 

 approach the beast pay for their temerity with their 

 lives. Already several have been made to bite the 

 dust, without any result, when Meleager, more fortu- 

 nate and no doubt also more skilful, succeeds in stab- 

 bing the beast with his stake. Victory is his, and the 

 boar should belong to him, or at least the head, as a 

 trophy of his courage ; but his uncles, furious at their 

 nephew's acquisition of a new title to fame in addi- 

 tion to so many former ones, do not look at it in that 

 light. The dispute becomes heated, and, as usual in 

 those brutal times, the disputants pass quickly from 

 argument to blows. Meleager, beside himself with 

 wrath, kills his two uncles with the same stake that 

 has drunk the blood of the beast." 



' ' Oh, wretched man ! ' ' cried Jules. 



"Evil overtook him. On hearing of the death of 

 her two brothers, Meleager 's mother loses her reason 

 from grief. She draws from a cupboard, where she 

 has kept it with the greatest care, a firebrand black- 

 ened at one end. With a hand trembling with an- 

 guish, she takes this firebrand, this precious fire- 

 brand for which hitherto she would have given her 

 very eyes, life itself, and throws it into the fire, where 

 it is straightway consumed. Ah, what has she done, 

 the unhappy mother, what has she done ! At that 

 moment her son Meleager is dying, consumed by an 

 inner fire ; he is dying, he is dead, for the firebrand 

 has just given its last flicker. In her despair the 

 poor mother kills herself. 



