Barty was afraid there might not be much fun, but when he saw the
lion slowly wink one eye at him and then saw another lion wink, and a tiger and elephant wink too, until each animal in the circus had winked, he began to see that something queer was going to happen. But he could not imagine what it was going to be, because they all huddled round his feet as if they were frightened, and even shook and shivered.
When the first robber had wriggled through the slit in the rock, another one began to wriggle through, and then another and another until there were no less than four robbers standing scowling at him.
"Hello!" said the biggest one, who was the captain, and had a feather sticking in his hat and at least four pistols and six swords hanging at his belt. "Here's a rich kid! He's just what we were looking for. He's got the finest lot of mechanical toys I ever saw in my life. Just look at those lions lashing their tails."