“And the wild beasts of the islands
shall cry
in their desolate homes.-The
Bible.
“Gawd!”
Mrs. Henry Higgins called upon the
Almighty in the vernacular of Seven Dials, sought
gropingly for the members of her progeny who clutched
her skirt, and fortunately kept her head.
“’Enery James-no!
Gertrude Ellen-you’ve gotter better
headpiece, jest yer slip along to the keeper an’
tell ’im to look slippy and come along
quick h’and quiet!”
Gertrude Ellen, puffed up with pride
at the pull she had had over her brother, slipped
off, as her mother continued in a raucous whisper,
“Now if that young miss don’t deserve a
thorough good ’iding! I’d take the
skin off yer if any of yer did such a fing, strite
I would. Drat yer, keep stilt cawn’t yer-you’ll
rouse the brute!”
She shook her skirts so that the half-dozen
clinging children rattled like a bunch of keys, pushed
her jet bonnet back from the shiny wrinkled forehead,
and waited, her motherly heart aquake in spite of
her drastic language.
Jan Cuxson was standing in front of
the lions’ cage at one end of the lion-house,
talking to his old friend the keeper, under the impression
that Leonie was close beside him; but she, having taken
advantage of their conversation and a practically
empty house, had slipped quietly away, climbed the
barrier near the far window, and was also holding
conversation-with a tiger from Bengal.
The animal lay outstretched with his
wonderful head close to the bars, and his unblinking
opalescent gold-flecked eyes staring straight into
the opalescent gold-flecked eyes of the child as she
stood on tip-toe so that her face was almost on a
level with that of the animal.
“Poor tiger!” she
was saying. “I’m vewwy sowwy for
you-I’m sure you’re not so
vewy, vewy wicked, an’ if you will bend your
head I will stwoke you behind the ear same as I did
Kitty.”
Mrs. Henry Higgins gasped.
Holding on to one bar tightly just
near the tiger’s mouth so as to steady herself,
Leonie stretched, and thrusting her hand inside began
to rub the tiger’s head quite forcibly behind
the ear.
“Nice?” she inquired as
the animal closed its eyes under the unexpected and
unexperienced caress, then opening them lifted the
beautiful head and yawned to the full capacity of
the huge mouth, affording Leonie a front row view
of the splendid ivories and pale pink tongue.
“Oh-h-h!”
said she admiringly, standing flat and patting the
nearest paw. “I do like you though
you do fwighten me when you walk so softly
in my dweams-oh-h-h!”
She shivered with ecstasy as the tiger
rolled on its back, displaying its soft white belly
as it bit its hind foot with the abandon of a baby,
then turned on its side, and leaping sideways to its
feet, slunk off to the far corner of the miserable
den, which is all a civilised country gives a wild
animal in exchange for its jungle home.
Meanwhile the Higgins brood, like
hungry sparrows on a rail, were sitting open-mouthed
on the lower steps provided for the benefit of those
spectators who wish to revel with safety in the degrading
sight of the royal beasts fed with lumps of bleeding
meat pushed through the lower bar on the end of a
prong.
Rendered somewhat incoherent by fear,
and haste, allied to the ghastly English she had acquired
in the streets and been allowed to retain in the Council
School, Gertrude Ellen had found it somewhat difficult
to arouse the keeper to a realisation of the impending
disaster.
But when he did look over his
shoulder in the direction her dirty little hand was
pointing he swore a mighty oath and acted promptly.
“Keep still, Sir, for the love
of heaven!” he whispered, catching hold of Jan
Cuxson’s arm as the latter made a step forward.
“Don’t let that there animal see yer,
he’s the blamedest, cussedest brute I’ve
ever had to do with. Never had a civil growl
from him since he came here over three years ago.”
Whilst speaking the man had hurriedly
discarded his boots and climbed inside the barrier,
whilst Cuxson held the child quiet by her thin little
shoulders.
“Damn that woman,” went
on the keeper, “why can’t she keep still.
Sure as blazes if that there tiger sees her, which
don’t mean if he’s looking at her,
he’ll go nasty and have that missy’s ’and
off.”
Mrs. Higgins, having clumped her brood
into silence, was making frantic and what she imagined
to be surreptitious signals of distress with her left
arm, keeping her eyes glued on Leonie, who was clinging
to the bars with both hands whilst calling upon the
tiger to come back.
He came back, half crouched, noiselessly,
stealthily, the hair of the belly almost touching
the ground, for all the world like a cat about to
spring upon an unsuspecting sparrow.
He came to a standstill within an
inch of the bars and threw his pointed ears straight
forward so that they stood out at right angles to
the beautifully marked face; spasmodically twitched
back the mouth without a sound issuing therefrom,
and then lay down and pressed his head against the
bars.
The tiny hand was stroking the silky
ears, patting the head, and prodding contentedly into
the thick fur of the neck when suddenly with a mighty
heart-quaking roar the tiger leapt up and back, and
then hurled himself at the bars.
The keeper had crept, bent double,
along the inside of the barrier, and had most suddenly
and surprisingly seized Leonie by the waist and wrenched
her free from the bars to which she had tried to cling,
holding her like a vice in his arms where she vainly
kicked and struggled for freedom.