the beasts lay round about it, but they had put their heads down and were asleep. moreover, they did not awake when he went up to them, so he stepped over them, climbed the fence, and got safely into the garden. there, in the very middle of it, stood the tree of life, and the red apples were shining upon the branches. he climbed up the trunk to the top, and as he was about to reach out for an apple, he saw a ring hanging before it; but he thrust his hand through that without any difficulty, and gathered the apple. the ring closed tightly on his arm, and all at once he felt a prodigious strength flowing through his veins. when he had come down again from the tree with the apple, he would not climb over the fence, but grasped the great gate, and had no need to shake it more than once before it sprang open with a loud crash. then he went out, and the lion which had been lying down before, was awake and sprang after him, not in rage and fierceness, but following him humbly as its master.