While this was going on, we had been hearing from time to time a great sound, half-whine, half-rumbling guttural cough, that came from somewhere behind the exit from the cage. It was repeated at rapidly decreasing intervals, and grew lower in pitch until it ended in a short bass grunt. It sounded cruel and menacing, and when at its full volume the wood of the benches under us thrilled and vibrated.
There was a little pause in the programme while the arena was cleared and new and much larger and heavier paraphernalia were set about, and a gentleman with well-groomed hair and a very shiny hat entered and announced “the world’s greatest lion-tamer.” Then he went away and the tamer came in and stood expectantly by the side of the entrance. There was another short wait and the band struck a long minor chord.
And then they came in, one after the other, with long, crouching, lurching strides, not all good-humoredly, like the dogs or the elephant, or even the bear, but with low-hanging heads, surly, watchful, their eyes gleaming with the rage and hate that burned in their hearts, and that they dared not vent. Their loose, yellow hides rolled and rippled over the great muscles as they moved, and the breath coming from their hot, half-open mouths turned to steam as it struck the air.
A huge, blue-painted see-saw was dragged out to the centre, and the tamer made a sharp sound of command. Slowly, and with twitching tails, two of them obeyed, and, clambering upon the balancing-board, swung up and down, while the music played a see-saw waltz. And all the while their great eyes flamed with the detestation of the thing, and their black upper lips curled away from their long fangs in protest of this hourly renewed humiliation and degradation.
And one of the others, while waiting his turn to be whipped and bullied, sat up on his haunches and faced us and looked far away beyond us over the heads of the audience—over the continent and ocean, as it were—as though he saw something in that quarter that made him forget his present surroundings.
“You grand old brute,” muttered Toppan; and then he said: “Do you know what you would see if you were to look into his eyes now? You would see Africa, and unnamed mountains, and great stony stretches of desert, with hot blue shadows, and plains of salt, and lairs in the jungle-grass, and lurking places near the paths the steinbok make when they go down to water. But now he’s hampered and caged—is there anything worse than a caged lion?—and kept from the life he loves and was made for”—just here the tamer spoke sharply to him, and his eyes and crest drooped—“and ruled over,” concluded Toppan, “by some one who is not so great as he, who has spoiled what was best in him, and has turned his powers to trivial, resultless uses—some one weaker than he, yet stronger. Ah, well, old brute, it was yours once, we will remember that.”
They wheeled out a clumsy velocipede built expressly for him, and, while the lash whistled and snapped about him, the conquered king heaved himself upon it and went around and around the ring, while the band played a quickstep. The audience broke into applause, and the tamer smirked and bobbed his well-oiled head. I thought of Samson performing for the Philistines and Thusnelda at the triumph of Germanicus. The great beasts, grand though conquered, seemed to be the only dignified ones in the whole business. I hated the audience who saw their shame from behind iron bars; I hated myself for being one of them; and I hated the smug, sniggering tamer.
This latter had been drawing out various stools and ladders, and now arranged the lions upon them so they should form a pyramid, with himself on top.
Then he swung himself up among them, with his heels upon their necks, and, taking hold of the jaws of one, wrenched them apart with a great show of strength, turning his head to the audience so that all should see.
And just then the electric light above him cackled harshly, guttered, dropped down to a pencil of dull red, then went out, and the place was absolutely dark.