422 THE LION KILLER. 



" ' I will stand against the tree, let another of you moun^ 

 my shoulders, taking the same position, and then another, 

 and another, until we form a ladder that will reach the 

 wretch and drag him down.' 



" The counsel was considered good, and forthwith a 

 »pyramid of lions might have been seen climbing up the side 

 of the tree, one above another, and gradually approaching the 

 refugee. The topmost round of the ladder was made, and the 

 wood-cutter almost reached, when he called out in a loud 

 voice : 



" ' Hold on till I cut a cudgel and give that fellow at the 

 bottom another drubbing. 7 



" The sound of this voice, so dreadful, but above all the 

 remembrance of the cudgelling he had so recently received, 

 so frightened the young lion that was at the bottom of the 

 pyramid, that he jumped out from under his comrades, and 

 took to his heels with surprising agility. The ladder of lions 

 suddenly deprived of its support, came tumbling to the 

 ground with a great crash. They fell from such a prodigious 

 height, that those that were not killed, were stunned and 

 wounded, and all lay moaning in a heap. 



"Then the wood-cutter slid down the tree and seized his 

 axe. He killed those that were wounded, and stripping the 

 skins off of them all, he gaily marched to his douar, the richest 

 man from Cairo to Timbuctoo." 



