and caressing them as formerly, kept them aloof and chastised them
severely with her heavy paws whenever they came too near.

Soon after this one of the cubs died, and Leo's grief was painful to
witness. He licked it all over, put his huge paw on it, and turned it
from one side to the other, uttering queer little sounds all the time,
and, when he found it would neither move nor respond to his caresses,
gave a prolonged howl of misery which struck terror into his wife's
heart.

She had had enough of it by this time; she disliked a mangy husband
and scrofulous children, and so the next evening quietly took her
departure to some other place where the surroundings were more
congenial.

Leo tottered back to his lair that night with staggering, uneven steps
to find his wife had gone and that his last remaining cub had just
died.

With a cry of pain, something between a roar and a deep growl, Leo
stretched himself over the two little, dead bodies of his children and
pined and fretted away.

He no longer went for food, not even for Kaffirs, and the villagers
and animals in the neighborhood wondered what had become of him, and
whether his absence meant some fresh daring on his part.

But there was no more daring for Leo. From the time he laid his long,
warm body over the cold forms of his children he never rose again.