The lioness, having quenched her thirst (after some ferocious meal),
turned from the spring and, coming upon the veil, sniffed at it
curiously, tore and tossed it with her reddened jaws,--as she would
have done with Thisbe herself,--then dropped the plaything and crept
away to the forest once more.

It was but a little after this that Pyramus came hurrying to the
meeting-place, breathless with eagerness to find Thisbe and tell her
what had delayed him. He found no Thisbe there. For a moment he was
confounded. Then he looked about for some sign of her, some footprint
by the pool. There was the trail of a wild beast in the grass, and near
by a woman's veil, torn and stained with blood; he caught it up and
knew it for Thisbe's.

So she had come at the appointed hour, true to her word; she had waited
there for him alone and defenceless, and she had fallen a prey to some
beast from the jungle! As these thoughts rushed upon the young man's
mind, he could endure no more.

"Was it to meet me, Thisbe, that you came to such a death!" cried he.
"And I followed all too late. But I will atone. Even now I come
lagging, but by no will of mine!"

So saying, the poor youth drew his sword and fell upon it, there at the
foot of that mulberry-tree which he had named as the trysting-place,
and his life-blood ran about the roots.

During these very moments, Thisbe, hearing no sound and a little
reassured, had stolen from her hiding-place and was come to the edge of
the grove. She saw that the lioness had left the spring, and, eager to