Nero, the Circus Lion Part 6

"Yes, I did," was the answer. "Don't you know better than to drink before me?"

"Who are you?" asked Nero.

"I am the two-horned rhinoceros," was the answer. "And the only jungle folk who can drink with me, or before me, are the elephants. A hippopotamus can, too, as a hippo, which is his short name, is a friend of mine. But, as they live in the water nearly all the time, they don't have to come to a jungle pool to drink. I had a friend once, named Chunky. He was a happy hippo, and he and I used to drink together."

"What became of him?" asked Nero. He was not angry with the rhinoceros for having knocked him away from the water. That was the law of the jungle, just as Nero had driven away the monkeys.

"What became of Chunky? Oh, he ran away and joined a circus, I believe,"

answered the rhinoceros.

"What's a circus?" Nero wanted to know.

"Oh, please don't bother me," replied the two-horned animal. "I am too thirsty to talk," and he drank a lot of water. Then, when he went away, it was Nero's turn. And after the lion had quenched his thirst he thought of asking the rhinoceros the way to the lost cave. But the rhinoceros was gone.

"I guess I'll have to find my own way home," thought poor Nero, as he wandered on and on in the jungle.

Several weeks pa.s.sed, and though Nero grew bigger and stronger, he was still a lion cub. And he was very lonesome and homesick, because he could not find his cave. Then, one day, something happened--something very important.

Nero was very hungry, not having been able to get anything to eat for a long time, when, all at once, he smelled something good. It was meat--just what he wanted--and, looking along a jungle path used by wild animals, he saw, lying on a pile of leaves, a chunk of goat flesh.

"Ah, there is a meal for me!" thought Nero, and then, his paw being well again, he gave a spring, and landed right on the meat.

But something very strange happened. Nero suddenly felt himself falling down. Down and down he went, into a big hole, and the meat and the pile of leaves went with him. Down into a black pit fell Nero, and, as he toppled in, a black African man shouted:

"Ha! The lion is in the trap! The lion is in my trap!"

CHAPTER VI

NERO IN A CIRCUS

Nero did not know what had happened to him, except that he had fallen down into a big hole dug in the earth. He did not know what the black African man said about being in a "trap," for though Nero could understand lion talk, he did not yet know much about the talk of men.

Later on he was to learn a little about that. Just now he was frightened and hurt, for when he fell down the hole he had struck his paw that had the bullet in it, and, though the sore was healed, it still pained a bit at times.

"I wonder what can have happened to me," thought Nero, as he tumbled and twisted about on the bottom of the pit, which was partly filled with dried leaves. "I wonder what this is, anyhow!"

More than once, when a very little lion boy and out walking along the jungle paths with his father and mother, Nero had fallen into a mud puddle or other hole, because he had not yet learned to walk steadily and carefully. But at such times he had easily scrambled out of the hole, or his mother had helped him.

Now Mrs. Lion was not here to do this, and, try as he did, Nero could not get out of this hole. It was too deep, and the sides were too straight. Nero tried hard enough, jumping up and clawing at the dirt, some of which got into his eyes, but jump though he did, and roar though he did, he could not get out.

Up on top, at the edge of the hole, the black African man was jumping about, waving his hands, in one of which was a long, sharp spear, and the African was shouting:

"I have caught a lion! I have a lion in my hole-trap! Whoop-la!"

Of course Nero did not know what all this meant. All he knew was that a man had something to do with his trouble.

"Maybe that is the hunter man who shot me," thought Nero; "and now he has caught me because I ran away from him and hid in the cave. Well, he has caught me at last, unless I can get out of this hole."

But Nero was wrong. This was not the same man who had shot him. This was another man, a trapper of wild animals, and he had dug a deep hole along a jungle path where he knew lions and other animals would walk. Then he covered the hole with little sticks and leaves, so they would easily break if a big animal, like Nero, jumped on them.

And that is just what Nero had done. He saw the piece of meat on the ground, and jumped straight for it. But he landed in the middle of the sticks and leaves, and fell into the hole.

That is how Nero was caught, and he did not like it at all. He wanted to be loose, to roam through the jungle as he liked. He wanted to try to find his father and his mother and Chet and Boo. But they were far away.

And, while I think of it, I might tell you that for a long time after Nero was lost, that night of the hunt, Mr. Lion looked everywhere for the boy lion. But Nero could not be found, and his father and mother and the other lions thought he had been killed by the hunters. They never saw him again, and, for a time, felt very sad. But so many things happened in the jungle that Mr. and Mrs. Lion soon forgot Nero. That's the way with animals. They are not like us. And so it was that Nero's father and mother never really knew what happened to him. They might find out if they could read this book, but that, of course, can't be done.

Now we'll get back to Nero. There he was in the bottom of a big hole, and up at the top was the black African trapper looking down on him.

Pretty soon other hunters and trappers came to see the lion that had been caught alive.

"He's a fine big fellow, Chaki," said one black man to the trapper who had been so pleased when Nero was caught. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Oh, I am going to sell him to a white animal man who comes from across the sea in a big boat called a s.h.i.+p," answered Chaki, the trapper.

"And what will the white animal man do with a live lion?"

"He buys him to sell to a circus," answered Chaki.

"And what is a circus?" asked the other black man.

"I don't know," answered Chaki, "except that far across the ocean white people like to pay money to look at wild animals such as we have in our jungle. That's all I know about a circus. The white animal man told me that."

"Ha! A circus!" laughed the other black man. "And people pay money to look at wild animals? Well, they should come to the jungle. They could see all the animals they want for nothing."

And of course we could, I suppose, only very few of us can go to jungles, and so we go to circuses instead.

Nero, down on the bottom of the hole, listened to the talk of the black men up above. He did not understand any of it, or he might have remembered that word "circus." The rhinoceros, who had knocked him away from the drinking pool, had spoken of a "circus" where Chunky, the happy hippo, went. But Nero was too frightened and in too much pain to pay any heed to what the men said.

And then began a very unhappy time for our lion friend. It was such an unhappy, sad time that I am not going to tell you very much about this part of Nero's life. I'm going to skip over it and come to the funnier, happier part.

For, after the lion had thrashed about on the bottom of the pit for some time, the black African trapper let down ropes and tangled the lion all up in them. Then Nero was hauled to the top of the pit and put into a big wooden cage. He tried to get out, by striking the bars with his paws, and biting them with his teeth, but they were too strong. Then he lay down in a corner of his cage and shut his eyes. He did not like to look out through the bars at the jungle, when he could no longer roam about as he liked. Poor Nero was a prisoner--a caged wild animal.

For many days Nero was kept in the cage in the jungle near the hut of the black trapper. At first the lion would not eat, but at last he grew so hungry that he had to take some of the meat they thrust through the bars of the cage to him. And when he had eaten and taken some water, Nero felt better. But he was still cross and unhappy, and whenever any of the black Africans came near his cage Nero would suddenly stick out his paws and try to scratch them. But they knew enough to keep out of his way.

Then, one day, Nero felt his cage being suddenly lifted up on long poles, which the black men put across their shoulders, and so they carried the caged lion through the jungle. They wouldn't trust Nero to walk by himself. What had happened was that the white animal man, who bought wild animals for his circus, had come along, and, seeing that Nero was a fine lion, had taken him to be sent away across the ocean, from Africa to the United States of America, where there were many circuses.

Nero, still in his cage, was put on board a s.h.i.+p. He was stowed away down in a deep, black hole, deeper and blacker than the jungle pit into which he had fallen, and then began a sea voyage.

Nero didn't like this a bit. Sometimes he seemed to be standing on his head, and again he would be on his feet. At other times he seemed to roll over and over in a regular somersault. And these somersaults weren't at all like the ones he used to turn by accident, when he was playing tag in the jungle with his brother and sister, or with Switchie.

"Oh, dear, I don't like this at all!" grumbled Nero, in his cage in the s.h.i.+p. "I wish I could go back to the jungle. Oh, here I go again--upside down!"

And over he went, cage and all. What was happening was that the s.h.i.+p was in a big storm, and was being tossed up and down on great ocean waves, and that Nero's cage had got loose and was being flung about.

Our lion friend was seasick, and he had a dreadful time. More than once he wished himself back in the jungle, but he could not get there.

After many days the s.h.i.+p stopped tossing to and fro. It had crossed to the other side, with Nero on board, and was now tied up at a dock in New York. Then Nero felt himself being hoisted up in his cage, and, for the first time in many days, he saw the sun again and smelled fresh air.