Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/117

ners, commanded them to cast the unfortunate husband headlong into the sea. Perceiving, therefore, that all opposition was useless, he took up his two children, and departed with much and heavy sorrow: "Merciful heaven," he exclaimed, as he wept over his bereaved offspring—"your poor mother is lost; and, in a strange land, in the arms of a strange lord, must lament her fate." Travelling along, he came to a river, the water of which ran so high, that it appeared hazardous in an eminent degree to cross with both the children at the same time: one, therefore he placed carefully upon the bank, and then passed over with the other in his arms. This effected, he laid it upon the ground, and returned immediately for the remaining child. But in the midst of the river accidentally glancing his eye back, he beheld a wolf hastily snatch up the child, and run with it into an adjoining wood. Half maddened at a sight so truly afflicting, he turned to rescue it from the destruction with which it was threatened; but at that instant a huge lion approached the child he had left; and seizing it