“But why do I tell you, little goat, all this sad story? Because I can see that while you are as afraid as death of me, you are still sorry for me and sympathize with me in my awful sufferings.
“When about a year old, large and strong for my age, I was caught in one of the cunning traps set for us. Though my case was a hopeless one from the first, when the black men came to take me, I fought as I had never fought before. Two of my captors fell, never to rise again. With a stroke of my paw I had crushed the skull of each. Others of them were frightfully mangled and wounded. But it was all of no use. I was brought to America, sold to this show, and here I have been ever since.”
The other things he said Billy Whiskers would never try even to repeat. They were too dreadful. His one hope seemed to be that he might some day break out of his cage when a great crowd of people were before it, spring upon them and kill right and left until he should feel that he had paid off the score of all his wrongs and sufferings.
Billy tried to comfort the lion for he was truly sorry for him. He realized what a magnificent beast he was and what a wretched life it must be shut up all the time in one little cage. He told him, however, that it would be wrong for him to visit his wrath on the innocent people who came to admire him if he ever succeeded in breaking out, but that he would be justified in dealing with the wicked king of the Belgians as he saw fit if he were ever able to get his claws on him.
Billy then sadly said farewell, for although all this conversation had taken place in the animal language in much less time than it takes to tell it, he now felt that he must hasten on as there was still much to see and hear.
Turning about, Billy discovered that the cage of the big African lion was just opposite the place, near the centre of the tent, where the elephants were stationed. So Billy went to look at them, hoping for more cheerful things than the stories of the wolf and lion.
What he found the next chapter will tell.
CHAPTER VI
THE ELEPHANT’S TRUNK
THERE was even a larger crowd standing around the elephants than in front of the lions’ cage. It took Billy a minute or two to wiggle his way through. While he was doing this as quietly and gently as he could, for you can well believe that he was on his good behavior, a little thing happened that came near upsetting all his calculations and bringing to an untimely end the adventures of this red letter day at the Circus.