Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 10
TO poor Freckles, sitting upon the sand of the beach, on the edge of a vast, dark, tropical forest, with the Southern Cross and the countless stars above him, and wild, weird sounds on every hand, this night was a night of terrors.
Mr. Williams had told him to find the others when he landed, and for all to keep together, but the rest had swam ashore nearly an hour before he had, as Mr. Williams wished Freckles and Dapples to stay on the ship if possible.
Freckles had not been able to guide Sir Wilton straight to the shore, and, as a result, he had landed in a small cove nearly a mile from the spot where a score of the circus riders and their mounts were now sleeping on the sands.
So, to all intents and purposes, s, Freckles and Dapples were alone.
The boy realized, with a great sense of love in his heart, how much more alone he would have been without the little horse. He was as affectionate as a dog, and, although he could not express his love in as many ways as a dog could, yet he managed, by rubbing his nose against his master's cheek, and by caressing his face with his lips, to tell him that he loved him with all the devotion of his horse heart.
From time to time signal rockets went up from the ship, so Freckles knew that she had not yet sunk. He thought of Mr. Williams and all the rest who had stuck by the ship, and wondered vaguely if he would ever see them again.
Truly this life of the circus was a strange one, and his own had been even too full of thrills of late for his comfort.
The booming of the surf on the low sandspit Freckles understood, but the great dark forest in front of him was filled with terrifying sounds which he did not understand.
He could see dimly that the trees were very large, so large in fact that he could not tell where one left off and another began. Their tops seemed to interlace like one great canopy. The undergrowth was also very thick, and one would have needed a hatchet to have penetrated very far in it. But the sounds from the unknown depths terrified him even more than its solemn vastness. Great bats as large as birds went zigzagging overhead. At first Freckles thought they were birds, but he finally decided they were bats. Strange birds screamed in the forest, and Freckles concluded these were parrots. The captain had told him the day before that the islands along shore were alive with parrots and cockatoos.
But the strangest of all the sounds was a continuous roaring of great volume and awful persistence. This was produced by a colony of roaring monkeys, that were having a midnight carousal.
The jaguar was also out that night for prey. Several times Freckles heard his cry in the distance. Then, for a long time, he was still, but presently there was a terrific struggle in the underbrush within a hundred feet of them. The boy heard a pathetic bleating, and wondered what sort of animal had paid the price of being smaller and more defenseless than his fellow.
The jaguar had obtained his midnight supper. He had surprised a doe and her fawn, and had pulled the fawn down and killed it. It was a small South American deer, just the sort of supper for a hungry jaguar.
Later on, farther away in the woods, Freckles heard another death struggle.
This time a huge snake had reached down from an overhead branch where it was watching, and taken an ant-eater,—just another of the tragedies of the South American forest, which teems with life, and where the life-and-death struggle goes on ceaselessly.
It seemed to the weary, terrified boy that the daylight would never come. He felt sure, if the daylight did come, that these sounds of fights-to-the-death about him would cease, for it is in the night that most of the jungle-hunting is done.
At last, about daybreak, he fell asleep and dreamed he was back in the ring with Sir Wilton. For a wonder, Dapples was troubling him with his tricks. He continually got his signals mixed and did the wrong trick, which made the audience laugh. Freckles was so troubled about this that he awoke. He found the sun shining brightly. To his great joy he heard shouts along the shore not far distant. He answered, and started with all haste to make his way in the direction from which they had come.
In five minutes he had gained a small beach where the score of circus people had slept during the long night. He was more delighted to see them than he had ever been to see any human beings before.
To their great joy they discovered that the ship from which they had fled the night before had not sunk after all. A sister ship was standing by, to which the passen* gers and animals were being transferred.
Two hours later a boat put off, and arrangements were made for bringing themarooned circus riders back to the ship.
Freckles sat in the stern of a life-boat, while Sir Wilton, supported by four lifepreservers, swam easily behind.
This score of riders were the most delighted beings that ever set foot upon a solid deck after braving the teeth of an angry sea for hours and sleeping on a lonely South American beach.
The following day the now too thoroughly crowded ship hailed a tramp steamer headed for Rio de Janeiro, which was her own destination. As the tramp was returning with little cargo, some of the animals and circus people were transferred to her, and all went on their way rejoicing, feeling that they had escaped miraculously.
Arrived at Rio de Janeiro, the ninety gaudy circus cars were transferred, first to a ferry-boat, and then to one of the leading South American railroads. So two days after the big American show landed on South American soil they were once more bumping over the rails in the accustomed manner, showing every day or two. But the accommodations for exhibiting, and especially for feeding the circus, were not as good as in the United States, notwithstanding the fact that the advance agents and buyers had done everything possible.
Nor had the advertising been neglected. For weeks small South American urchins, of all degrees of blackness, from the swarthy Spaniard to the native, black as a coal, had been gaping open-mouthed at the circus posters which informed them in glowing Spanish all about the big show. Nor were the children the only ones who gazed spellbound at the posters, for many of the South Americans of mixed blood are little more than children in the ways of the world and its wonders. So it was a very easily pleased audience before which the circus played. The only thing that they had ever witnessed that approached the circus in any degree was the Spanish bull-fight.
A lot of the circus people went to a bull-fight one Sunday, when the president and some of the other high Brazilian officials were present.
Now the circus people as a class are very devoted animal-lovers, and they denounced the bull-fight among themselves as a bloody spectacle belonging more to the dark ages than to the present enlightened century. One bull-fight was enough for most of them, so they rarely patronized the Sunday shows after that first day.
When Freckles and Dapples rode about the South American cities and towns between performances they were always followed by a crowd of squalid children, nearly all of whom asked for American money. This constant begging greatly disgusted Freckles, who had been brought up with much of the New England thrift.
It was while playing in the great city of Buenos Aires that an accident befell Sir Wilton that changed the lives of both the Shetland and his driver, although its farreaching scope did not at first appear.
Perhaps the most popular of the small horse's stunts was his trapeze act. The trapeze was a platform about six feet long and three feet wide. He ascended it by a set of steps, which were afterwards removed. When he was in position on the trapeze Freckles would start it swinging gently. This movement the Shetland would accelerate by swaying his body and shifting his weight from his hind legs to his fore legs. When the trapeze was swinging sufficiently, the pony would make the spring to a standard or pedestal which was about three feet away. Then he would turn about and make a bow to the audience and make ready for the spring back. Again some one had to set the trapeze swinging until it would swing close enough to the standard for the return jump.
Although the trick was seemingly perfectly safe, and Sir Wilton had made it several hundred times since coming into the circus life, and also in England, yet he misjudged the distance for once and came to grief. No one knew how it happened. Perhaps something in the audience distracted his attention. The only thing they knew was that it happened.
Instead of waiting until the trapeze had swung to the end of its arc, and then springing as it receded, Dapples jumped too quickly, and his fore-leg was caught between the swinging trapeze and the edge of the standard, and broken.
Freckles was by his side in a moment, trembling with fear and excitement.
Half a dozen circus hands were at once ealled. The favorite of the children had to be carried bodily from the ring, while Spanish children wept at the sight.
The veterinary, who always travels with the circus, inspected Sir Wilton's injury and then shook his head. To poor Freckles this shake of the head meant disaster. His first thought was that Dapples would have to be shot. But the veterinary, seeing his pale face, hastened to reassure him.
"Oh, no, son; it isn't as bad as that. We can mend him, but it will take a long time. He will have to be slung up for several weeks, and the leg will have to be in splints and perhaps a plaster cast. It means no more showing for you two for the rest of this South American trip. If there is a mix-up, you two seem to get into it."
Freckles hung upon the veterinarian's every movement as he arranged a swing for the small horse. They finally made a portable frame for the swing, so that Dapples could be shipped in it when the time should come.
After spending the better part of the night over Sir Wilton, the veterinary said good-bye to him and to Freckles, and started after the circus, which had already departed.
So, for the second time, the chums were left behind, while the circus rattled on its way.
Freckles spent most of his time with Sir Wilton, talking to him, or reading quietly in the shade of a large tree which stood near the stable. Freckles himself boarded at a hotel, but he had little heart to explore the town. He and Dapples had explored so many cities together that it seemed wrong for him to go alone as long as his little horse friend could not go. Thus a tedious month dragged by.
Although it was winter, yet Freckles thought it very hot. He did not much like the South American cities, because they were not clean, and also because he could not understand Spanish.
One day, when he had become discouraged with his and Dapples's lot, and wondered how much longer they would be kept there, he received a telegram from Mr. Bingham, requesting him to come to the city where they were to show the next day. The telegram concluded, "I have a proposition to make to you. Come at once."
Little dreaming of the surprise the circus owner had in store for Sir Wilton and himself, Freckles went, and it was from Mr. Bingham's lips that he heard the proposal that changed all the rest of Dapples's life, and his own as well.