A little after sunrise on the day set for our first performance, Speed sauntered into my dressing-room in excellent humor, saying that not only had the village of Paradise already filled up with the peasantry of Finistère and Morbihan, but every outlying hamlet from St. Julien to Pont Aven was overflowing; that many had even camped last night along the roadside; in short, that the country was unmistakably aroused to the importance of the Anti-Prussian Republican circus and the Flying Mermaid of Ker-Ys.
I listened to him almost indifferently, saying that I was very glad for the governor’s sake, and continued to wash a deep scratch on my left arm, using salt water to allay the irritation left by Aïcha’s closely pared claws—the vixen.
But the scratch had not poisoned me; I was in fine physical condition; rehearsals had kept us all in trim; our animals, too, were in good shape; and the machinery started without a creak when, an hour later, Byram himself opened the box-office at the tent-door and began to sell tickets to an immense crowd for the first performance, which was set for two o’clock that afternoon.
I had had an unpleasant hour’s work with the lions, during which Marghouz, a beast hitherto lazy and docile, had attempted to creep behind me. Again I had betrayed irritation; again the lions saw it, 281 understood it, and remembered. Aïcha tore my sleeve; when I dragged Timour Melek’s huge jaws apart he endured the operation patiently, but as soon as I gave the signal to retire he sprang snarling to the floor, mane on end, and held his ground, just long enough to defy me. Poor devils! Who but I knew that they were right and I was wrong! Who but I understood what lack of freedom meant to the strong—meant to caged creatures, unrighteously deprived of liberty! Though born in captivity, wild things change nothing; they sleep by day, walk by night, follow as well as they can the instincts which a caged life cannot crush in them, nor a miserable, artificial existence obliterate.
They are right to resist.
I mentioned something of this to Speed as I was putting on my coat to go out, but he only scowled at me, saying: “Your usefulness as a lion-tamer is ended, my friend; you are a fool to enter that cage again, and I’m going to tell Byram.”
“Don’t spoil the governor’s pleasure now,” I said, irritably; “the old man is out there selling tickets with both hands, while little Griggs counts receipts in a stage whisper. Let him alone, Speed; I’m going to give it up soon, anyway—not now—not while the governor has a chance to make a little money; but soon—very soon. You are right; I can’t control anything now—not even myself. I must give up my lions, after all.”
“When?” said Speed.
“Soon—I don’t know. I’m tired—really tired. I want to go home.”
“Home! Have you one?” he asked, with a faint sneer of surprise.