"The circus," I murmured.
"Ha!" said Angus Jones.
"Not the kind of circus you mean," I assured him. "No clowns, no rings, no shell games. It's a kind of fifth-class traveling menagerie, from what I hear, backed as a new venture by his excellency the governor himself. They'll house it in that round barn up the promenade where the cinema lives, and anon those natives who have the price will sit around on the benches and tremble and scratch themselves."
"But why should it be thus?" asked Angus Jones.
"Well, those who carry fleas—"
"No, but why should they tremble?"
"This is a far island. No one hereabouts has ever seen any animals more savage than a goat."
"True," said Angus Jones, with a grimace as if he had bitten into a sour fruit. "It is their simplicity. I had almost forgot."
Strange that he should have taken the word in defeat and disillusionment at that moment, for just then the thing happened. There burst a shrill screaming from the tramp, and its knot of toilers flew apart like bits of a bomb. Men leaped into the rigging, climbed the spars, shot down the hatchways. The hanging cage sagged and cracked, and overside flashed, with an arching spring, some great body all lithe and tawny in the sunlight. It plunged, and presently reappeared, surging for shore.