The tiger turned away from the man, who was still shouting for the police, and from the woman, who had covered her eyes with her hands, and then [Tamba ran for what he thought was the doorway of a cave]. At the entrance he could see that it stretched away out in a sort of dark tunnel.
“This is the place for me!” said Tamba to himself, and the next moment he was running down some stone steps. As he went down he heard a loud rumbling and roaring.
“Ha! There is going to be a thunder storm,” thought Tamba. “I came to this cave just in time!”
And, back in the street, where they had first seen the jungle beast, the man and woman cried:
“Oh, the tiger ran down into the subway! The tiger is in the subway!”
CHAPTER X
TAMBA AT THE DOCK
Queer as it may seem, Tamba had done that very thing. He had run from the street into the opening of a subway station in a big city, thinking it was a cave. And if you have ever been in a city where the street cars run underground instead of on the surface, as wagons and automobiles do, or instead of up in the air, as the elevated trains run, then you will understand how it was that Tamba made his mistake. For it was a mistake to go down into the subway, thinking it was a cave.
The rumbling and roaring sound Tamba heard was a train coming along the subway, and, being underground, it made much more noise and racket than it would have done up on the surface. So it is no wonder the tame tiger thought it was a thunder storm.