Then, too, he saw something else.A slender, pink-clad figure was darting under the net with outstretched arms.
"It's Phil.He's going to catch her," shouted Teddy jubilantly.
But Phil went down under the impact of the heavy blow as Zorayastruck him.A throng of ring attendants gathered about them, and in a moment the two forms were picked up and borne quickly from the ring.
Once, years before, Shivers had been through an earthquake in South America, when things about him were topsy-turvy, when the circus tent came tumbling down about him, and ring curbs went up into the air in most bewildering fashion.
Now, that same sensation was upon him again, and quarter poles seemed to dance before his eyes like giddy marionettes, while the long rows of blue seats appeared to be tilted up at a dangerous angle.Then slowly the clown's bewilderment merged into keen understanding, but his painted face reflected none of the anguish that was gripping at his heart strings.
Teddy brushed a hand across his own eyes.
"I--I guess they're both killed," he said falteringly.
Just then the voice of the head clown broke out in the old Netherlands harvest song:
"Yanker didel doodle down,Didel, dudel lanter, Yankee viver, voover vown,Botermilk und tanther.""Poor Zoraya!" muttered the clown under cover of the applause that greeted his vocal effort.And his associates looked down from their perches high in the air, gazing in wonder upon the clown who was bowing so low that, each time he did so, he was obliged to turn a somersault to gain his equilibrium.
"Dangerously hurt--went through the net head first.Hurry!" panted a belated clown, running by to his station."Boy hurt, too.""Told you so!" grumbled Teddy.
But Shivers did not flinch, and, as he neared the reserved seats on the grandstand, his voice again rang out, this time in a variation of the ancient harvest song:
"Yankee doodle, keep it up,Yankee doodle, dandy; Mind the music and the step,And with your feet be handy."Never had the show people seen Shivers so uproariously funny.Under the spell of his merriment, the audience quickly forgot the tragic scene that they had just witnessed.
Teddy, however, noticed little dark trenches that had ploughed their courses down through the makeup of the clown's cheeks from his eyes.Teddy knew that tears had caused those furrows.
As Shivers looked down the long, grassy stretch ahead of him, that he still must cover before his act would be finished, the goal seemed far away.He flashed one longing glance toward the crimson curtains that shut off the view of the paddock and the dressing tents, vaguely wondering what lay beyond for him and for little Zoraya.Then Shivers set his jaws hard, plunging into a mad whirl of handsprings and somersaults, each of which sent him nearer to the end of that seemingly endless way.
"Here, here, what are you trying to do?" gasped Tucker, unable to keep up with the clown's rapid progress by doing the same things.Teddy solved the problem by running.He could keep up in no other way.
