CHAPTER XII
TAMBA IN THE JUNGLE
Tamba, the tame tiger, had hidden himself away in the dark part of the ship called the “hold.” It was there that the cargo was stored—the place where boxes, barrels, and big wooden cases of things sent across the ocean were kept from the time the ship left one dock, until it came to another to unload.
So Tamba had gone softly up the gangplank in the soft darkness of the night from the pier, he had dropped to the deck of the ship, and had crawled down what is called a “hatchway” into a hold. And there he hid.
And I must tell you how it happened that Tamba smelled the wild animal odor on one ship, and not on another.
It was because this ship had, a week or so before, brought from India and Africa a cargo of wild animals for a circus. There had been lions and tigers and elephants and snakes on the ship, and even though they had been taken off when the ship reached New York, some of the smell remained. And it was this which Tamba smelled, and which made him feel sure that this was a jungle-ship, or one that would take him back to his Indian home.
All through the night Tamba slept in the hold of the ship, among the boxes and the barrels, as he had slept on the dock. When he awoke he could see a little sunshine streaming through a crack, and he knew another day had come.
Just then he felt a queer motion. It was as if the whole ship, and he himself in it, had been moved along. And that is just what was happening. The ship was moving away from the dock, getting ready for the voyage across the ocean. Tamba knew what the motion meant. He had felt it before on his first sea voyage, when he had been brought away from the jungle.
“Well, at last I’m on my way back to the jungle,” thought Tamba. “It’s lucky I found this ship.”