Though she never forgot that caution with which a mouse is born, she did in time get over her dreadful fear of all the huge forms among which she crept.

She learned that the imprisoned animals were either too good-tempered or too unhappy to harm a tiny mouse.

But these orangutans remained mysterious and uncanny. She was perpetually horrified by their resemblance to the most dangerous and most powerful creature the mouse knew.

Nevertheless, she often visited the orangs. She was drawn by curiosity and probably, too, by the partially eaten nuts that were always lying about. But principally she was lured on by the terror she felt whenever she gazed at the orangutans.

Never could she make up her mind to reveal herself. And she always slipped away with the blissful shuddery feeling of having escaped some horrible fate.

That day she remained longer than usual. She was so spellbound by the event she had witnessed that she never once thought how safely she could have hunted for nuts.

Her sharp nose twitched violently, her majestic whiskers quivered, her whole body was trembling when at last she ran away.

Chapter Two

“Come On Out, Boys!”

SOFT, AND FILLED WITH THE CHARM and grace of developing life in young bodies, Barri and Burri were playing together. They rejoiced in the age of four weeks which had been one uninterrupted round of pleasure, one huge entertainment.

Their mother, the lioness Hella, sat with her forepaws stretched out before her, her handsome head with its keen but tender expression raised to watch the antics of her children.

Quite suddenly, Barri lay down, as if tired—and he really may have been somewhat exhausted. He needed so little preparation to lie down, was so mobile, so elastic and loose in all his joints, that he seemed suddenly to have given way in a heap as he sprawled on the floor. He had a roguish expression and suppressed a smile.

Burri stumbled over his brother’s unexpected form, tumbling down as if he had no bones at all. He picked himself up somewhat confused, taking his brother’s calm repose as a new challenge. In any case, he had no intention of allowing a pause in the sport. He trotted up to Barri and cuffed his ear.

Barri parried from where he lay, a quick stroke that caught his assailant on the leg. Burri jumped on him. It was a hop-skip-jump which met a response of childish playfulness that was like a silent exultation. But Burri came instantly prancing back again and tapped his playmate’s flank with a paw which was much too big for him and which it would quite evidently take him some time to grow up to.

Barri rolled over on his back, waving all four feet in the air. The little fellow was laughing fit to burst, laughing not merely with his face but with his whole body.

Burri stood over him. The two began to tussle. Lying on his back, Barri resisted, pressing his hind-legs against Burri, and finally succeeded in taking a fall out of him though for a moment his brother had looked like the victor. Then they rolled into a ball together, kicking and snapping. This was followed by gentle growls and snarls.

It was all fun and, as children, it delighted them to play in this fashion. But in the depths of their natures, not quite awakened as yet, an untamable wildness vibrated and was tested in these playful struggles.

Mother Hella watched them with majestic satisfaction. She laughed.

There was another spectator, too—Vasta the mouse. She sat by the partition that separated their pen from the outer cage. When she saw the lioness laugh, she plucked up courage.

“Splendid children!” she piped.

Hella pricked up her ears and turned her head. “You here again?”

“I just ran in for a moment,” said Vasta.

“Any news?” asked the lioness.

“My dear!” She sat up on her hind-legs, holding her neat forepaws under her little pointed nose. “Something quite remarkable.”

She was about to begin her story when Burri and Barri, who heard her, came trotting over, their heads cocked, bent on mischief, side by side. They crouched, began to slink, prepared to spring. Here was a new plaything.

But Vasta was disinclined to be a plaything for young lions. She flashed through the crack by which she had come. Burri and Barri pawed clumsily at the spot where the mouse had been.