Baby Jane's Mission Part 8

Edouardo, who was drawing the barrow, pulled up on the very brink of the precipice; but with such a jerk that, alas for Baby Jane, she performed a wilder somersault than she had dreamt of, even in a nightmare, and landed on the top of the pile.

It took some time to unbuild the pyramid, because the lowest layer heaved so strongly that it upset the upper layer as they tried to rise.

But, after a while, they were all upon their feet again, bruised, panting, possibly a little flatter and wider than before, but otherwise unhurt.

Then they began to look about for a way out of the gully. It was very deep and narrow, but not very long, and they had soon explored it thoroughly, and made a terrible discovery--there was no way out but up the smooth, upright sides. Up above they saw Edouardo's head cut out in black against the darkening sky, as he peered helplessly over the edge.

Mary Carmichael set up a shrill wail, but the others all looked very solemn and stood in a circle round Baby Jane gazing at her, as she stood with her hands over her face trying to make her little brains work more quietly and calmly. Now out of all the hours of her life she most needed all her little stock of memory and knowledge. What would a grown-up person do in such a plight? But no thoughts would come, and her chin sank lower on her breast.

'Only magic can save us,' said the Lion at last. 'Does any one know of a spell?'

The party all racked their brains, but nothing came of it.

Suddenly Baby Jane uncovered her face.

'Yes, I know of a _real_ spell,' she said smiling, and then with her face turned frankly up to the narrow sky she uttered a few words, which the creatures could not understand, and which puzzled Sammy. 'Now we have only got to wait,' said she.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Still the eagle rose.]

Soon afterwards a most wonderful thing happened. Overhead suddenly there came the sound of rushing wings, and a gigantic eagle, who had seen the disaster from afar, swooped into the ravine, and, clutching the Bear, was rising with him, when the Lion made a grab at the Bear's feet, and he too was borne upwards. Then Mary Carmichael clasped her forelegs round the Lion, and she ascended also. One after another they seized the last pair of legs, and rose until the whole band was dangling from the Bear's legs. Still the eagle rose, now very like a kite with a long tail, and would have soared with them all into the air had not Edouardo on the top of the precipice seized the last pair of legs as they swayed towards him. That was the last straw, and the eagle let fall the string of creatures with a flop upon the open desert--they were saved!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A string of 'sandwich-men.']

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT CIRCUS

On the morning after the wonderful escape from the ravine, the whole company were, for a while, rather quiet and subdued.

Nothing was to be seen of Baby Jane but the top of her golden head. Her boys and beasts were huddled close round, trying to help her with sleepy suggestions, mostly silly, for raising an army to convert the Bad Band of the Black Mountains.

But as they squatted there on the soft sand in the drowsy warmth of the sun, the councillors began to grow sleepier and their counsels sillier, till suddenly--

'What ho!' said Sammy, and they all woke up. 'Let us have a "greatest show on earth," with a circus and gymnastics, and a play-act to follow.

That will catch 'em all alive like a fly-paper, and Miss Jane can enlist the lot! But first we must crawl along in a string in a gutter, if we can find one, rigged out with boards with fine words on them:

'BABY JANE'S GIGANTIC JUBILEE CIRCUS

BUNNY THE FUNNY AND CROCKY THE FAIR MOUNTED ON MARY THE MUSICAL MARE.'

'No, I won't!' interrupted Mary Carmichael angrily; 'I don't mind being a tight-rope dancer, but I _won't_ be a spotted horse!'

Sammy went on calmly:

'COMICAL CAPERS AND MARVELLOUS FEATS, _Two shilling, shilling, and sixpenny seats_.'

'Splendid!' said Baby Jane. 'All except the last words, which are wrong. The seats are all _nothing_ seats.'

Sammy looked crestfallen--he had thought of the circus an hour before, but had spent all that time in inventing those beautiful lines.

A little later a string of 'sandwich-men' might have been seen walking in step slowly and solemnly across the desert, each bearing before him a beautiful poster (drawn by himself, with a bit of burnt wood on white stuff stretched across four sticks).

'Don't let us tell any one we are sandwich-men,' whispered Mary Carmichael nervously; 'they might think we meant it and take a plateful of us!'

At the end of the procession came Edouardo and the barrow as a caravan.

'It's a pity,' thought Baby Jane with a sigh, 'the barrow has no looking-gla.s.ses and gold things and a Britannia on the top and a band inside; but they won't know what a real circus is like, so perhaps we can amuse them.'

It is little wonder that a procession, so rarely seen in those parts, should attract the creatures who saw it from afar, and, as each one ran round the corner and beckoned and shouted to his friends to come along quick, the solemn line of sandwich-men was soon escorted by an expectant rabble. They all seemed of the right sort--beasts really bad at heart despised harmless fun like this.

Greater still was the curiosity aroused when Baby Jane and her troupe came to a stop in a shallow round hollow with sloping banks like the rising tiers of seats in a real circus. Round the bottom of this hollow Sammy drew a line in the sand, and the following crowd were marshalled into their seats outside it.

Then the circus began. The Bear had just the proper fat figure and gruff voice for a ring-master, and he cracked the whip (ordinarily used to encourage Edouardo) in the most correct way. The Rabbit made an excellently idiotic clown.

The first item was a tight-rope dance by Mary Carmichael. She _would_ do it in spite of every one's advice that she was being too ambitious.

Dressed in a silly little muslin skirt and carrying the umbrella coquettishly over her shoulder, she skipped up to the rope that had been stretched between two posts, and, with the help of the Bear, clambered on to it. For a moment all went well. With a simpering smile she went trip-tripping along the rope; but then she gave a frightful stagger, swung out her legs in all directions, twisted her back cruelly in a wild effort to recover herself, and fell with a clatter to the ground, smashing the umbrella beneath her.

The whole audience roared with delight, thinking it part of the fun, but there were tears in Mary's eyes as she limped out of the ring.

'I am afraid I have spoiled the whole show with my silliness,' she said in a choking voice. 'I had better be a common spotted horse now.'

As it was Miss Crocodile's turn to appear as the Queen of the Ring, they took Mary at her word, though she had not meant it, and, having taken away her skirt and put it on Miss Crocodile, they spotted her like a leopard and she had to canter round the ring, watering the sand with bitter tears, while Miss Crocodile, looking very winsome with her little legs crossed, sat sideways upon her and smiled at the audience.

Miss Crocodile was at first quite a brilliant success. Twice she leapt nimbly through the hoop of bent bamboo held aloft by the Bear, but by the third round Mary's sadness had turned to spite.

As before, Miss Crocodile rose into the air and shot through the hoop, but to her dismay she found no horse on the other side for her to come down upon, and she alighted on her chin, balanced for a moment with her tail pointing to the sky, and then fell flat on her back. Mary Carmichael had stopped short under the hoop!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mary Carmichael had stopped short under the hoop.]

At this moment the Rabbit came racing into the ring mounted on a curious four-legged animal which looked strangely like the Piccaninny and Patsey joined together and covered with a rug.

'A race!' squeaked the Rabbit. 'My pony Joey against old Spots-and-corners!'

The spotted Horse appealed to the Ring-master to stop the Rabbit's rudeness, but all the same began to gallop furiously to show that she could do at least one thing well. But the Rabbit, being nearer the middle of the ring, had a much shorter course, and would have won easily if only Patsey, who was the hind legs, could have run as fast as the Piccaninny. As it was, the strange pony grew longer and longer, until the Rabbit, who had a foot on each, was nearly pulled in half. Suddenly the Pony broke in the middle, and both halves and the Rabbit, all mixed up in the ring, joined in a fearful battle on the ground.

'The silly little cuckoos!' squeaked the Rabbit breathlessly, as he arose from the tangled heap. 'I warned them about that.'

After that the three children were led in with ropes round their necks and let loose within a little fence, which represented a cage. Then 'Leo, the heroic Baby Tamer,' trembling visibly, entered, and holding out a stick for that ferocious creature Baby Jane to jump over, tried to subdue her by the power of the eye. But she seemed to consider his magical gaze merely rude, and, looking as like Miss McColl in a temper as she could, she crept towards him. She must have looked very like, for, with a screech of real fright, the Lion fell flat on his back.

Before the wretched creature had time to rise the three savage brutes were upon him.

It was a fearful scene and caused a panic in the audience. Mother-bears clutched their baby-bears, young lady crocodiles fainted, and young lions stood up bravely--and shouted for the police. They were only rea.s.sured when the children and the Lion came out of the cage and publicly shook hands to show there was no ill-feeling.