the jackal-cub said: "Brothers, that is an elephant, an enemy of your race. Don't go near him." With this he ran home. And the other two, seeing their elder brother routed, felt their pluck ooze away. The well-known proverb is right:
One bold and plucky fighter
Will give an army pluck:
One broken, routed blighter
Diffuses evil luck.
And, indeed,
This is the very reason why
Kings look for sturdy fighters,
Heroic, dauntless, stone-wall men,
And shun the cowardly blighters.
Later the twin brothers went home, and humorously told their parents how their elder brother had behaved. "Why, you know," said they, "the minute he saw him, he couldn't get far enough quick enough."
When the jackal heard this, wrath entered his spirit. His blossom-lip quivered, his eyes grew red, and a frown made two deep wrinkles on his brow. And he spoke harshly, scolding the twins.
Then the lioness took him aside and admonished him: "You must never, never speak so, my dear. They are your brothers." But her patient pleading filled him with greater anger, and he burst upon her, too: "Do you think me their inferior in courage or beauty or science or application or skill? What right have they to ridicule me? I am certainly going to kill them."
