Now we'll get back to Nero. There he was in the bottom of a big hole, and up at the top was the black African trapper looking down on him. Pretty soon other hunters and trappers came to see the lion that had been caught alive.
"He's a fine big fellow, Chaki," said one black man to the trapper who had been so pleased when Nero was caught. "What are you going to do with him?"
"Oh, I am going to sell him to a white animal man who comes from across the sea in a big boat called a ship," answered Chaki, the trapper.
"And what will the white animal man do with a live lion?"
"He buys him to sell to a circus," answered Chaki.
"And what is a circus?" asked the other black man.
"I don't know," answered Chaki, "except that far across the ocean white people like to pay money to look at wild animals such as we have in our jungle. That's all I know about a circus. The white animal man told me that."
"Ha! A circus!" laughed the other black man. "And people pay money to look at wild animals? Well, they should come to the jungle. They could see all the animals they want for nothing."
And of course we could, I suppose, only very few of us can go to jungles, and so we go to circuses instead.
Nero, down on the bottom of the hole, listened to the talk of the black men up above. He did not understand any of it, or he might have remembered that word "circus." The rhinoceros, who had knocked him away from the drinking pool, had spoken of a "circus" where Chunky, the happy hippo, went. But Nero was too frightened and in too much pain to pay any heed to what the men said.