A Little Bush Maid Part 26

One of the lovely ladies, in a glistening suit of black, covered with spangles, next entered. She also preferred to ride standing, but was by no means idle. A gentleman in the ring obligingly handed her up many necessaries--plates and saucers and knives--and she threw these about the air, as she galloped with great apparent carelessness, yet never failed to catch each just as it seemed certain to fall. Tiring of this pursuit, she flung them all back at the gentleman with deadly aim, while he, resenting nothing, caught them cleverly, and disposed of them to a clown who stood by, open-mouthed. Then the gentleman hung bright ribbons across the ring, apparently with the unpleasant intention of sweeping the lady from her horse--an intention which she frustrated by lightly leaping over each in turn, while her horse galloped beneath it. Finally, the gentleman--whose ideas really seemed most unfriendly--suddenly confronted her with a great paper-covered hoop, the very sight of which would have made an ordinary horse shy wildly--but even at this obstacle the lady did not lose courage. Instead, she leaped straight through the hoop, paper and all, and was carried out by her faithful steed, amidst yells of applause.

Norah gasped.

"Oh, isn't it perfectly lovely, Daddy!" she said.

Perhaps you boys and girls who live in cities, or near towns.h.i.+ps where travelling companies pay yearly visits, can have no idea of what this first circus meant to this little bush maid, who had lived all her twelve years without seeing anything half so wonderful. Perhaps, too, you are lucky to have so many chances of seeing things--but it is something to possess nowadays, even at twelve, the unspoiled, fresh mind that Norah brought to her first circus.

Everything was absolutely real to her. The clown was a being almost too good for this world, seeing that his whole time was spent in making people laugh uproariously, and that he was so wonderfully unselfish in the way he allowed himself to be kicked and knocked about--always landing in positions so excruciatingly droll that you quite forgot to ask if he were hurt. All the ladies who galloped round the ring, and did such marvellous things, treating a mettled steed as though he were as motionless as a kitchen table, seemed to Norah models of beauty and grace. There was one who set her heart beating by her daring, for she not only leaped through a paper-covered hoop, but through three, one after the other, and then--marvel of marvels--through one on which the paper was alight and blazing fiercely! Norah held her breath, expecting to see her scorched and smouldering at the very least; but the heroic rider galloped on, without seeming so much as singed. Almost as wonderful was the total indifference of the horses to the strange sights around them.

"Bobs would be off his head!" said Norah.

She was especially enchanted with a small boy and girl who rode in on the same brown pony, and had all sorts of capers, as much off the pony's back as upon it. Not that it troubled them to be off, because they simply ran, together, at the pony, and landed simultaneously, standing on his back, while the gallant steed galloped the more furiously. They hung head downwards while the pony jumped over hurdles, to their great apparent danger; they even wrestled, standing, and the girl pitched the boy off to the accompaniment of loud strains from the band and wild cheers from Cunjee. Not that the boy minded--he picked himself up and raced the pony desperately round the ring--the girl standing and shrieking encouragement, the pony racing, the boy scudding in front, until he suddenly turned and bolted out of the ring, the pony following at his heels, but never quite catching him--so that the boy really won, after all, which Norah thought was quite as it should be.

Then there were the acrobats--accomplished men in tight clothes--who cut the most amazing somersaults, and seemed to regard no object as too great to be leaped over. They brought in the horses, and stood ever so many of them together, backed up by the elephant, and the leading acrobat jumped over them all without any apparent effort. After which all the horses galloped off of their own accord, and "put themselves away" without giving anyone any trouble. Then the acrobats were hauled up into the top of the tent, where they swung themselves from rope to rope, and somersaulted through s.p.a.ce; and one man hung head downwards, and caught by the hands another who came flying through the air as if he belonged there. Once he missed the outstretched hands, and Norah gasped expecting to see him terribly hurt--instead of which he fell harmlessly into a big net thoughtfully spread for his reception, and rebounded like a tennis ball, kissing his hand gracefully to the audience, after which he again whirled through the air, and this time landed safely in the hands of the hanging man, who had all this while seemed just as comfortable head downwards as any other way. There was even a little boy who swung himself about the tent as fearlessly as the grown men, and cut capers almost as dangerous as theirs. Norah couldn't help breathing more freely when the acrobats bowed their final farewell.

Mr. Linton consulted his programme.

"They're bringing in the lion next," he said.

The band struck up the liveliest of tunes. All the ring was cleared now, except for the clown, who suddenly a.s.sumed an appearance of great solemnity. He marched to the edge of the ring and struck an att.i.tude indicative of profound respect.

In came the elephant, lightly harnessed, and drawing a huge cage on wheels. On other sides marched attendants in special uniforms, and on the elephant's back stood the lion tamer, all glorious in scarlet and gold, so that he was almost hurtful to the eye. In the cage three lions paced ceaselessly up and down. The band blared. The people clapped. The clown bowed his forehead into the dust and said feelingly, "Wow!"

Beside the ring was another, more like a huge iron safe than a ring, as it was completely walled and roofed with iron bars. The cage was drawn up close beside this, and the doors slid back. The lions needed no further invitation. They gave smothered growls as they leaped from their close quarters into this larger breathing s.p.a.ce. Then another door was opened stealthily, and the lion tamer slipped in, armed with no weapon more deadly than a heavy whip.

Norah did not like it. It seemed to her, to put it mildly, a risky proceeding. Generally speaking, Norah was by no means a careful soul, and had no opinion of people who thought over much about looking after their skins; but this business of lions was not exactly what she had been used to. They appeared to her so hungry, and so remarkably ill tempered; and the man was as one to three, and had, apparently, no advantage in the matter of teeth and claws.

"Don't like this game," said the bush maiden, frowning. "Is he safe, Daddy?"

"Oh, he's all right," her father answered, smiling. "These chaps know how to take care of themselves; and the lions know he's master. Watch them Norah."

Norah was already doing that. The lions prowling round the ring, keeping wary eyes on their tamer, were called to duty by a sharp crack of the whip. Growling, they took their respective stations--two on the seats of chairs, the third standing between them, poised on the two chair backs.

Then they were put through a quick succession of tricks. They jumped over chairs and ropes and each other; they raced round the ring, taking hurdles at intervals; they balanced on big wooden b.a.l.l.s, and pushed them along by quick changes of position. Then they leaped through hoops, ornamented with fluttering strips of paper, and clearly did not care for the exercise. And all the while their stealthy eyes never left those of the tamer.

"How do you like it?" asked Mr. Linton.

"It's beastly!" said Norah, with surprising suddenness. "I hate it, Daddy. Such big, beautiful things, and to make them do silly tricks like these; just as you'd train a kitten!"

"Well, they're nothing more than big cats," laughed her father.

"I don't care. It's--it's mean, I think. I don't wonder they're cross.

And you can see they are, Daddy. If I was a lion I know I'd want to bite somebody!"

The lions certainly did seem cross. They growled constantly, and were slow to obey orders. The whip was always cracking, and once or twice a big lioness, who was especially sulky, received a sharp cut. The outside attendants kept close to the cage, armed with long iron bars. Norah thought, watching them, that they were somewhat uneasy. For herself, she knew she would be very glad when the lion "turn" was over.

The smaller tricks were finished, and the tamer made ready for the grand "chariot act." He dragged forward an iron chariot and to it harnessed the smaller lions with stout straps, coupling the reins to a hook on the front of the little vehicle. Then he signalled to the lioness to take her place as driver.

The lioness did not move. She crouched down, watching him with hungry, savage eyes. The trainer took a step forward, raising his whip.

"You--Queen!" he said sharply.

She growled, not stirring. A sudden movement of the lions behind him made the trainer glance round quickly.

There was a roar, and a yellow streak cleft the air. A child's voice screamed. The tamer's spring aside was too late, He went down on his face, the lioness upon him.

Norah's cry rang out over the circus, just as the lioness sprang--too late for the trainer, however. The girl was on her feet, clutching her father.

"Oh, Daddy--Daddy!" she said.

All was wildest confusion. Men were shouting, women screaming--two girls fainted, slipping down, motionless, unnoticed heaps, from their seats.

Circus men yelled contradictory orders. Within the ring the lioness crouched over the fallen man, her angry eyes roving about the disordered tent.

The two lions in the chariot were making furious attempts to break away.

Luckily their harness was strong, and they were so close to the edge of the ring that the attendants were able, with their iron bars, to keep them in check. After a few blows they settled down, growling, but subdued.

But to rescue the trainer was not so easy a matter. He lay in the very centre of the ring, beyond the reach of any weapons; and not a man would venture within the great cage. The attendants shouted at the lioness, brandished irons, cracked whips. She heard them unmoved. Once she s.h.i.+fted her position slightly and a moan came from the man underneath.

"This is awful," Mr. Linton said. He left his seat in the front row and went across the ring to the group of white-faced men. "Can't you shoot the brute?" he asked.

"We'd do it in a minute," the proprietor answered. "But who'd shoot and take the chance of hitting Joe? Look at the way they are--it's ten to one he'd get hit." He shook his head. "Well, I guess it's up to me to go in and tackle her--I'd get a better shot inside the ring." He moved forward.

A white-faced woman flung herself upon him and clung to him desperately.

Norah hardly recognised her as the gay lady who had so merrily jumped through the burning hoops a little while ago. "You shan't go, Dave!" she cried, sobbing. "You mustn't! Think of the kiddies! Joe hasn't got a wife and little uns."

The circus proprietor tried to loosen her hold. "I've got to, my girl,"

he said gently. "I can't leave a man o' mine to that brute. It's my fault--I orter known better than to let him take her from them cubs to-night. Let go, dear." He tried to unclinch her hands from his coat.

"Has she--the lioness--got little cubs?"

It was Norah's voice, and Mr. Linton started to find her at his side.

Norah, very pale and shaky, with wide eyes, glowing with a great idea.

The circus man nodded. "Two."

"Wouldn't she--" Norah's voice was trembling almost beyond the power of speech--"wouldn't she go to them if you showed them to her--put them in the small cage? My--old cat would!"

"By the powers!" said the proprietor. "Fetch 'em, d.i.c.k--run." The clown ran, his grotesque draperies contrasting oddly enough with his errand.

In an instant he was back, two fluffy yellow heaps in his arms. One whined as they drew near the cage, and the lioness looked up sharply with a growl. The clown held the cubs in her view, and she growled again, evidently uneasy. Beneath her the man was quiet now.

"The cage--quick?"

The big lion cage, its open door communicating with the ring, stood ready. The clown opened another door and slipped in the protesting cubs.

They made for the further door, but were checked by the stout cords fastened to their collars. He held them in leash, in full view of the lioness. She growled and moved, but did not leave her prey.

"Make 'em sing out!" the woman said sharply. Someone handed the clown an iron rod sharpened at one end. He pa.s.sed it through the bars, and prodded a cub on the foot. It whined angrily, and a quick growl came from the ring.

"Harder, d.i.c.k!"