Bruno took a good handful of mane in each hand, and
made believe to guide this new kind of steed. "Gee-up!', seemed quite
sufficient by way of verbal direction: the lion at once broke into an
easy canter, and we soon found ourselves in the depths of the forest.
I say 'we,' for I am certain that I accompanied them though how I managed
to keep up with a cantering lion I am wholly unable to explain.
But I was certainly one of the party when we came upon an old beggar-man
cutting sticks, at whose feet the lion made a profound obeisance,
Sylvie and Bruno at the same moment dismounting, and leaping in to the
arms of their father.
"From bad to worse!" the old man said to himself, dreamily, when the
children had finished their rather confused account of the Ambassador's
visit, gathered no doubt from general report, as they had not seen him
themselves. "From bad to worse! That is their destiny. I see it,
but I cannot alter it. The selfishness of a mean and crafty man--the
selfishness of an ambitious and silly woman--- the selfishness of a
spiteful and loveless child all tend one way, from bad to worse!
And you, my darlings, must suffer it awhile, I fear. Yet, when things
are at their worst, you can come to me. I can do but little as yet--"
Gathering up a handful of dust and scattering it in the air, he slowly
and solemnly pronounced some words that sounded like a charm,
the children looking on in awe-struck silence:--
"Let craft, ambition, spite,
Be quenched in Reason's night,
Till weakness turn to might,
Till what is dark be light,
Till what is wrong be right!"
The cloud of dust spread itself out through the air, as if it were
alive, forming curious shapes that were for ever changing into others.
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