The Eagle and the Fox

An eagle and a fox had long lived together as good neighbors; the eagle at the summit of a high tree, the fox in a hole at the foot of it. One day, however, while the fox was abroad, the eagle made a swoop at the fox's cub and carried it off to her nest, thinking that her lofty dwelling would secure her from the fox's revenge.

The fox, on her return home, upbraided the eagle for this breach of friendship, and begged earnestly to have her young one again. Finding that her entreaties were of no avail, she snatched a torch from an altar-fire that had been lighted hard. Involving the whole tree in flame and smoke, she soon made the eagle restore, through fear for herself and her own young ones, the cub that she had just now denied to her most earnest prayers.

The tyrant, though he may despise the tears of the oppressed, is never safe from their vengeance.