Page 159 - A Little Bush Maid

There was a roar, and a yellow streak cleft the air. A child’s voice
screamed. The tamer’s spring aside was too late, He went down on his face,

the lioness upon him.

Norah’s cry rang out over the circus, just as the lioness sprang--too late for
the trainer, however. The girl was on her feet, clutching her father.

"Oh, Daddy--Daddy!" she said.

All was wildest confusion. Men were shouting, women screaming--two
girls fainted, slipping down, motionless, unnoticed heaps, from their seats.
Circus men yelled contradictory orders. Within the ring the lioness

crouched over the fallen man, her angry eyes roving about the disordered
tent.

The two lions in the chariot were making furious attempts to break away.
Luckily their harness was strong, and they were so close to the edge of the

ring that the attendants were able, with their iron bars, to keep them in
check. After a few blows they settled down, growling, but subdued.

But to rescue the trainer was not so easy a matter. He lay in the very centre
of the ring, beyond the reach of any weapons; and not a man would venture

within the great cage. The attendants shouted at the lioness, brandished
irons, cracked whips. She heard them unmoved. Once she shifted her

position slightly and a moan came from the man underneath.

"This is awful," Mr. Linton said. He left his seat in the front row and went

across the ring to the group of white-faced men. "Can’t you shoot the
brute?" he asked.

"We’d do it in a minute," the proprietor answered. "But who’d shoot and
take the chance of hitting Joe? Look at the way they are--it’s ten to one he’d

get hit." He shook his head. "Well, T guess it’s up to me to go in and tackle
her--T’d get a better shot inside the ring." He moved forward.