III
BONAVITA DESCRIBES HIS FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS AND GEORGE ARSTINGSTALL TELLS HOW HE CONQUERED A MAD ELEPHANT
IN the course of days spent with Mr. Bostock and his menagerie, I observed many little instances of the tamer's affection for his animals. I could see it in the constant fondling of the big cats by Bostock himself, and by Bonavita, his chief tamer, and even by the cage grooms. And no matter how great the crush of business, there was always time for visiting a sick lioness out in the stable, who would never be better, poor thing, but should have all possible comforts for her last days. And late one afternoon I stood by while Bonavita led a powerful, yellow-maned lion into the arena cage and held him, as a mother might hold a suffering child, while the doctor, reaching cautiously through the bars, cut away a growth from the beast's left eye. It is true they used a local anesthetic; but even so, it hurt the lion, and Bonavita's position as he knelt and stroked the big head and spoke soothing words seemed to me as far as possible from secure. Yet it was plain that his only thought was to ease the lion's pain.
"I couldn't have done that with all my lions," Bonavita said to me after the operation; "but this one is specially trained. You know he lets me put my head in his mouth."
Bonavita is a handsome, slender man, with dark hair and eyes, quite the type of a Spanish gentleman; and I liked him not only for his mastery of twenty-odd lions, but because he had a gentle manner and was modest about his work. According to Mr. Bostock, Bonavita has but two strong affections: one for his old mother, and one for his lions. Occasionally I could get him aside for a talk, and that was a thing worth doing.
"People ask me such foolish questions about wild beasts," he said one day. "For instance, they want to know which would win in a fight, a lion or a tiger. I tell them that is like asking which would win in a fight, an Irishman or a Scotchman. It all depends on the particular tiger you have and the particular lion. Animals are just as different as men: some are good, some bad; some you can trust and some you can't trust."
"Which is the most dangerous lion you have?" I inquired.
"Well," said he, "that's one of those questions I don't know how to answer. If you ask which lion has been the most dangerous so far, I should say Denver, because he tore my right arm one day so badly that they nearly had to cut it off. Still, I think Ingomar is my most dangerous lion, although he hasn't got his teeth in me yet; he's tried, but missed me. It doesn't matter, though, what I think, for it may be one of these lazy, innocent-looking lions that will really kill me. They seem tame as kittens, but you can't tell what's underneath. Suppose I turn my back and one of them springs—why, it's all off."