Three Hundred Æsop's Fables/The Serpent and the Eagle

THE SERPENT AND THE EAGLE.

A Serpent and an Eagle were struggling with each other in the throes of a deadly conflict. The Serpent had the advantage, and was about to strangle the bird. A countryman saw them, and running up, loosed the coil of the Serpent, and let the Eagle go free. The Serpent, irritated at the escape of his prey, let fly his poison, and injected it into the drinking horn of the countryman. The rustic, ignorant of his danger, was about to drink, when the Eagle struck his hand with his wing, and, seizing the drinking horn in his talons carried it up aloft.