A CAGED LION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4883, 7 February 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CAGED LION.

In front of tho entrance a "spicier stood on a starch box and beat upon a piece oi liu with a stick, ami v.'c weakly succumbed to ids frenzied appeals and went inside. Wo did tins. I am sure, partly to please iho ■‘spieler,’’ who would )nr. o been dn.-adliilly disappointed li hv bad not done so. but partly, 100, to pb a.se Toppan, who was always mlercsU-'l in the great beasts and liked W watch them. It is possible I hat you may remember Toppan us tee man ivno niarried victoria jioyden, and. in so doing, thrust bis ■ i rom him and became a hank clerk instead of an explorer. Aider lie niarried no came 10 Im quite ashamed of wlial iio bad done in Thibet and Ainca and oilier unknown corners of the earth, ami, after a while, veiy seldom spolcc ol that pari, of his life at all; or, when ho did, it was Only to allude to it as a pirn. - inf; boyish fancy, altogether foolish and silly, like calf love and early attempts at poetry. “I used to I hink L was going to set tbo world on it re at one time,’’ lie said once. “I suppose every young man bus some snub ideas, i. only made an ass ot myself. and I’m ghui i':n wed out of it. Victoria saved mo from that.”

lint Lhin was long uflerwaids. He died buru, and sometimes ho would bat e moments of strength in Ids weakness, ju.-it as before be bad given up ids carter during a moment of weakness in bis strength. During tiro first years after bo bad give'll up Ills career, bo thought be was content with tbo way tilings bud come to bo; but it was not so. and now and then tbo old feeding, the lovo of the old life, tbo old ambition, would bo stirred into activity again by some sight, or sound, or opisudo in tbo conventional lifo around bim. A ctianco paragraph in a newspaper, a sight of tho Arizona deserts of sago and cactus, a momentary panic on a ferry boat, sometimes, even lino music or a great poem would wake tbo better part of him to tbo desire of doing great things. At such times the longing grow big and troublous within him to cut loose from ft all and got back to those places of tbo earth where there were neither months nor years, and where tbo days of tbo week had do names; whore lie could feel unknown winds blowing against ids face and unnamed mountains rising beneath his feet; where tie could SCO groat sandy, stony stretches of desert, with hot, blue shadows and plains of salt, and thickets of jungle grass broken only by tho lairs of beasts and the paths the steiubok make when they go down to water. The most trifling thing would recall all this to him just as a couple of notes have recalled to you whole arias and overtures. But with 'l'oppuu it was as though one hod recalled .the arias and the overtures and then was not allowed to sing them. We went into tho arena and sat down. Tho ring iu the middle was fenced in by a great, circular iron cage. The tiers of seats rose around this, a band was playing in a box over the entrance, and tho whole interior was lighted by an electric globe slung over tho middle of tho cage. Inside tho cage a brown bear—to mo less suggestive of a wild animal than of laprobos and furriers’ signs—was dancing Bloopiiy and allowing himself to bo prodded by a person whoso celluloid standing collar showed white at the neck above tho green of his Tyrolese costVnne. After this we had a clown elephant, dressed iu a bib and, tucker and vast baggy breeohos—like those of a particularly big Trench Turco—who had lunch with his keeper. And then, after they had both made their how and gone out, in bounded amt tumbled the dogs, barking and grinning all over, jumping up on their 'stools and benches, wriggling and pushing 0110 another about, giggling and excited like so many kindergarten children on a show day. While this was going on wo had been bearing from tithe to tirao a great sound, half whine, half rumbling guttural cough, thai cam© from somewhere behind tho exit from tho cage. It was repeated at rapidly decreasing intervals, and grew louder 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 tho programme while the arena was cleared and now' and much larger and heavier paraphernalia were set about, and a gentleman with well-groomed hair and a very shiny hat entered, and announced “tho world’s greatest lion tamer.'' Then ho went away, and tho tamer, came in and stood expectantly by tho side of tho entranco; there was another short wait, and the hand struck a long minor chord. And then camo in. cue after the other, with long, crouching, lurching strides, not at all good humouredly, like tho dogs or the elephant, or even the bear but with low hanging heads, surly, watchful, their eyes, gleaming with,rage and hate that burned in their hearts, and that they dared not vent. Their loose, yellow hides rolled and rippled over tho great muscles as they moved, and tho 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 groat eyes darned with the detestation of the thing and their black upper lips curled away irom their long fangs in protest of this hourly renewed humiliation and degradation. And one of the others, while waiting his turn to bo whipped and bullied, sat on his haunches and faced us, and-looked ' far away beyond us over the heads of the audience —over tho continent and ocean, as it were—as though ho saw something in that quarter that made him forgot his present surroundings. "You grand old brute," muttered Toppan; and then ho said: “Do you know what you would see if you were into his eyes now? Vi>u would see Africa, and unnamed mountains, and great stony ■ stretches of desert, ■ with hot _ blue r- shadows, and plains -of salt, and lairs m •x-the jungle grass, and lurking places near ■' the paths tho steiubok 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 tho 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 Ims spoiled what was best in him and has turned his powers to trivial, rosultless uses—some oua 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 baud played a quickstep, the audience broke into applause, and tho tamer smirked and bobbed his well-oiled head. I thought of Samson performing ‘ for the Philistines and Thusnelda at the triumph of fXermanicus. Tho great beasts, grand though conquered, seemed to he the only dignified ones in the whole business. X hated the audience who- saw their shame from behind iron bars; I hated myself for being ono of them; and X hated tho smug, sniggering tamer. This latter had been drawing out gar-ions stools and ladders, and now arranged tho lions upon them so they should form a pyramid, with himself on ton.

TTien he swung him self lip among them, with his heels upon their pecks, npd. taking hold of the jaws of one. wren died them apart with a great show of strength, turning his head to the ntidienco so that all could see. And jnst then the electric light above him cackled harshly euttered. dropped down to a pencil of dnll red. then went ont and the place was absolutely dark. The band stopped abruptly with a dis- <■ rord. and there was an instant of silence. Then we heard the steels and ladders 'clattering ns the lions leaped down, and straightway four pa : rs of lambent green spots burned ont of the darkness and travelled swiftly about boro and there,

cro.-isi 11 1; and recri-S'ng O.IC an'itherl liio lights of slcaiiicis .1. a ' ! ;.i :i.. h«.r loiore, too Hons had bom •■‘Og’rd'n lin 'f i Ctrl; now they wei’fe a:ou.-:cd and aleit iu an install!, and we coulu boar the -wilt pad-pad ot their heavy Je«u as they swung around the arena, and Hip sound oi their great bodies ruobing against tho bars of the cage as one and tuo other nn-.-cd >1 carer to us. I (inn’t think ill" audience at all appreciated’ Ibo situation at lust, for no one moved or seemed excited, and one shrill vide,. *sus'g'.';;t' , d that I in- baud should play “Winn (he c!< erne lights; go out,’’ ■'Keep lierfeeilv quiet, please,” called I lie’ lam or cut of I lie darkness, .ami a ci until peculiar ring in his voice was the”first intimation of a possible danger. tint Toppaii knew, and as we ncanl the tamer tumbling for the catch ol the gate, which lie Mmienoiv could not loose in the darliue.'s, ho .-.aid. with a rising voice•'Ul" wants to get that gate open pretty (i-'Vick.'’ ’ Did for their restless movements the lions were, quiet; they uttered no sound, winch was a bad sign. Blinking and dazed by llio garish blue-whiteness of a few moments before, they could sec perfectly mnv where the tamer was blind. “Listen.” said Toppan, .Near to us. and on the inside of tho cage, we could bear a sound of some .-lender body being whisked back and forth over the surface of the floor. In an instant I guessed ivhut it way; one of the lions was crouched there whipping his sides with his tail. “When ho stops that, lie'll spring,” said Toppan excitedly. “Bring a light. J erry—quick!” came liio tamer’s voice. People were clambering to their feet by this time, talking loud, and we hoard a woman cry out.

“Please keep as quiet as possible, ladies and gentlemen!” cried the tamer; it won’t do to excite ” ,

Prom liio direction of the voice came the sound of a heavy fail and a crash that shook tho iron gratings in their sockets. “lie’s got him!” shouted Toppan. And then what a scene! In that thick darkness everyone sprang up, stuml/ing ever the scats and over each other, all shouting and crying out, suddenly stricken with a panic fear of something they could not .see. Inside tho barred death trap every lion suddenly gave tongue at once, until the air shook and sang in our ears. Wo could hear the great beasts hurling themselves against the bars, and could see their eyes leaving brassy streaks against tho darkness as they leaped. Two more sprang as tho first had done, towards that quarter of tho cage from which camo sounds of stamping and struggling, and then tho tamer began to scream. I think that so long as I shall live I shall not forget the sound of the tamer’s screams. lie did not scream as a woman would have done, from the head, hut from tho chest, which sounded so much worse that I was sick from it 111 a second with that sickness that weakous one at tho pit of tho stomach and along the muscles at the back of the legs. lio did not pause for a second, livery breath was a scream, and every scream was alike, and one hoard through it all the long snarls of satisfied hate and revenge, muffled by the man’s clothes and the rip, rip of the cruel, blunt claws. Hearing it all in the. dark, as we did, made it all the more dreadful. I think for a time' I must have taken leave of my senses. I was ready to vomit for tho sickness that was upon me, and I beat my hands raw upon the iron bars or clasped them over my cars against the sounds of the dreadful thing ’that was doing behind them. It seemed as though it had gone on for hours, when some men rushed in with a lantern and long sharp irons. _A hundred voices cried: “Here he is, over hero!” and they ran around outside the cage and threw tho light of the lantern on a place where a heap of grey, goldlaced clothes writhed and twisted beneath three great bulks of fulvous hide and bristling black mane. The irons were useless. The three furies dragged their prey out of their reach and crouched over it again and recommenced. No one dared to go into the cage, and still the man lived and struggled and screamed. I saw Toppan’s fingers go to his mouth, and through that medley of dreadful noises there issued a sound that, sick us I was, made mo shrink anew and close my eyes and teeth avui snudder as though some cold slime had been poured through tho hollow of my bones where tho marrow should he. It was as the noise of the whistling of a fine whip lash, mingled with the whirr of a locust magnified a hundred times,' and ended in an abrupt clacking noise thrice repeated. At once I remembered where I had 'heard it before, because, having once hoard the hiss of an aroused and angry serpent no child of Hve can over forget it.

Tho sound that came from between Toppan’s teeth and filled tho arena from wall to" wall, was tho sound I had heard once before in the Paris Jardin des Plantes at feeding time—tho sound made by tho great constrictors, when their huge bodies are looped and coiled like a reata for tho throw that never misses, never relaxes, and that no boast of the field is built strong enough to withstand. All the filthy wickedness and abominable malice of the centuries since the Enemy first entered into that shape that crawls, was concentrated in that hoarse, whistling hiss—a hiss that was cold and piercing like an icicle-made sound. It was not loud, but it had in it some sort of penetrating quality that cut through the waves of horrid sounds about us. as the snake-carved prow of tho Viking galley might have cut its way through the tumbling eddies of a tide rip. At tho second repetition the lions paused. None better than they know what was the meaning of that hiss. They had heard it before in their native-hunt-ing grounds in the earlier days of summer, when the first heat lay close over all tho jungle like the hollow of the palm of an angry god. Or if they' themselves had not heard it, their sires before them had, and the fear of the thing bred in their hones suddenly leaped to life at the sound and gripped them and held them close.

When for a third time the sound sung and shrilled in their ears their heads drew between their shoulders,, their great eyes grew small _ and glittering, tho hackles roso and stiffened on their backs, their tails drooped, and they backed slowly to the further side of the cage and cowered there, whining and beaten. Toppan wiped tho sweat from the inside of his bauds and went into the cage with tho keepers and gathered up the panting, broken body, with its twitching fingers and dead white face and ears, and carried it out. As they lifted it, the handful of pitiful medals dropped from tho shredded, grey coat and rattled down upon the floor. In tho silence that now succeeded, it was about tho only sound ono heard.

As wo sat that evening on the porch of Toppan’s house, in a fashionable suburb of the city, he said, for tho third time, “I had that trick from, a Mpougwo headman." and added. “It was while I was at Victoria Falls waiting to cross the Kalahari Desert.” Then he continued, his eyes growing keener and his manner changing, “There is some interesting work to bo done in that quarter by some one. Ton see, tho Kalahari runs like this”— he drew the lines on the ground with his cane —“coming down is something like this shape from the Orange river to about the twentieth parallel south. Tho aneroid gives its average elevation about ROD feet. I didn’t cross it at the time, because wo had sickness and the porters cat. But I made a let of geological observations, and froth these I have built up a theory that the Kalahari is no desert at all. but a big, well watered plateau, with higher ground on tho east and west. The tribes, too. thereabout call the place Dinoka-Koka, and that’s tho Bantu for rivers upon rivers. They’re nasty though, these Bantu, and gave ns a lot of trouble. They have a way of spitting little poisoned thorns into you unawares, and your tongue swells up andturns blue and your teeth fall out and ” . , IDs wife Victoria came out on tho porch in oveninp l dress. "Ah. Vie.” said Tonnan. jumping up, with a very sweet smile “we were jnst talking about your papergerman next Tuesday, and I think wo might have some

very pretty favours made- out of wnite tis-Tue paper —roses and butterflies, you know."—I rank Norris, in tho “Aigonaui."