Part 4 (2/2)
Meanwhile the Higgins brood, like hungry sparrows on a rail, were sitting open-mouthed on the lower steps provided for the benefit of those spectators who wish to revel with safety in the degrading sight of the royal beasts fed with lumps of bleeding meat pushed through the lower bar on the end of a p.r.o.ng.
Rendered somewhat incoherent by fear, and haste, allied to the ghastly English she had acquired in the streets and been allowed to retain in the Council School, Gertrude Ellen had found it somewhat difficult to arouse the keeper to a realisation of the impending disaster.
But when he _did_ look over his shoulder in the direction her dirty little hand was pointing he swore a mighty oath and acted promptly.
”Keep still, Sir, for the love of heaven!” he whispered, catching hold of Jan Cuxson's arm as the latter made a step forward. ”Don't let that there animal see yer, he's the blamedest, cussedest brute I've ever had to do with. Never had a civil growl from him since he came here over three years ago.”
Whilst speaking the man had hurriedly discarded his boots and climbed inside the barrier, whilst Cuxson held the child quiet by her thin little shoulders.
”d.a.m.n that woman,” went on the keeper, ”why can't she keep still. Sure as blazes if that there tiger sees her, which don't mean if he's _looking_ at her, he'll go nasty and have that missy's 'and off.”
Mrs. Higgins, having clumped her brood into silence, was making frantic and what she imagined to be surrept.i.tious signals of distress with her left arm, keeping her eyes glued on Leonie, who was clinging to the bars with both hands whilst calling upon the tiger to come back.
He came back, half crouched, noiselessly, stealthily, the hair of the belly almost touching the ground, for all the world like a cat about to spring upon an unsuspecting sparrow.
He came to a standstill within an inch of the bars and threw his pointed ears straight forward so that they stood out at right angles to the beautifully marked face; spasmodically twitched back the mouth without a sound issuing therefrom, and then lay down and pressed his head against the bars.
The tiny hand was stroking the silky ears, patting the head, and prodding contentedly into the thick fur of the neck when suddenly with a mighty heart-quaking roar the tiger leapt up and back, and then hurled himself at the bars.
The keeper had crept, bent double, along the inside of the barrier, and had most suddenly and surprisingly seized Leonie by the waist and wrenched her free from the bars to which she had tried to cling, holding her like a vice in his arms where she vainly kicked and struggled for freedom.
CHAPTER VII
”. . . that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does.”--_Plutarch_.
The whole house was in an uproar.
The lions were trotting round and round, stopping to listen and snuff in the sawdust near the bars; the stumpy jaguar, black as ink, with a body like a steel case, was rus.h.i.+ng up and down, rubbing its forehead fiercely as it turned; a lion and his mate were rearing themselves one after the other against the walls, half turning from the middle to fall almost backward in that peculiar movement which reminds one forcibly of great succeeding waves stopped and thrown back upon themselves by some bleak rock.
People were pus.h.i.+ng and straining to look in at the windows, and rattling the doors which had been hurriedly locked by the keepers who had rushed to ascertain the cause of the tumult, whilst the tiger made the place resound with its terrific roars as it hurled its huge weight again and again at the bars of its cage.
”Come _on_, Mother,” shouted the keeper above the din, ”bring all those children and let's get out. They'll quieten down when we've gone. Can't you _read_!”
He shook Leonie slightly under the stress of his agitation as he hauled her in front of the notice which commands you to refrain from climbing the barrier.
”Of course I can wead,” she replied with dignity; ”I'm weading the little----”
”Well! read _that_!”
”But--but”--stammered Leonie, having read with difficulty--”but I knew the tiger, Mr. Keeper!”
”_Oh_! yes! of course! You were tiger 'unting and brought him from the Sunderbunds about four years ago; it wasn't the gentleman, of course not!”
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