A NIGHT WITH THE ARABS. 413 



" ' Why, am / not with you V replied the proud and con- 

 ceited girl, and drawing her father by .his burnous, she led 

 him to the door, but the lion was nowhere to be seen. 



" Very well, I see how it is, you have been dreaming,' said 

 the father. 



" k My father, I swear to vou I see him still.' 



" c How did he look V 



' ' He was about four feet high, and seven feet long.' 



" ' Well.' 



u ' A beautiful mane.' 



"'Well' 



" ' Great eyes, as bright as the topaz.' 



"'Well.' 



" ' And teeth like ivory, only ' the girl hesitated. 



"'Only what?' 



Aicha lowered her voice : 



" ' Only he had a shocking bad breath.' 



She had hardly uttered these words, before a fearful roar 

 thundered from behind the tent, then another sounded about 

 half a mile off, and then another from the neighborhood of 

 the mountains, then they heard nothing more. There had 

 been hardly an instant's interval between the roars. It was 

 evident that the lion desiring to know what the young girl 

 said of him, had made a circuit and come behind the tent to 

 listen, and had gone off in great mortification, in finding out 

 this imperfection, so much the more dangerous because those 

 who are infected by it, never perceive it themselves. 



" A month passed by, and they saw no more of the lion, 

 and the maiden had forgotten him save when she told the 

 story to her comrades to wile away the warm hours of noon. 

 She went again as before, to the woods to cut her fagots, and 

 with hatchet in hand, and one day she wandered about until 

 she found herself in the same place where she had met 

 her first adventure. The fagots having been cut and piled 



