Disowned Part 3

"Wisht I had a ... Show'm whether it's a fake...."

Tristan closed his act by dropping full-length to the end of his invisible wire, then pulled himself down, got into his stilts, and was unfastening the belt, when the manager rushed in with a request that he repeat, for the benefit of a special party just arrived on a delayed train.

"Go on and look at the animals, old man." Tristan called to me. "I'll be with you in about half an hour!"

I strolled out idly, meeting on the way the flap-eared youth, who seemed bent on making his way back into the tent, wearing a mingled air of furtiveness, of triumph, and antic.i.p.ation. Wondering casually just what kind of fool the lad was planning to make of himself next, I wandered on toward the main entrance--only to be stopped by an appalling uproar behind me. There was a raucous, gurgling shriek of mortal terror; the loud composite "O-o-o!" of a shocked or astonished crowd; a set of fervent curses directed at some one; loud confused babbling, and then a woman's voice raised in a seemingly endless succession of hysterical shrieks. Thinking that an animal had gotten loose, or something of that kind, I wheeled. Unmistakably the racket came from Tristan's own tent.

Cold dread clutching at my heart, and with lead on my boot soles, I rushed frantically back. At the entrance I was held by a mad onrush of humanity for some moments. When I reached the platform, Tristan was not in sight. Then I noticed the long-necked boy sitting on the platform with his face in his hands, shrieking:

"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! d.a.m.n it, don't touch me! I thought sure it was a fake!"

I saw a new, glittering jack-knife lying on the platform beside the limp, foot-long stub of Tristan's rope. Slowly, frozenly, I raised my eyes. The blue abyss was traceless of any object....