Chapter 4. The Elephant Cries "Phoomp!"

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_ CHAPTER FOUR. THE ELEPHANT CRIES "PHOOMP!"

Plymborough was out in street and road excepting those who lived on the line of route and had windows that looked down upon the coming procession, which was to be timed to reach the town, after a long march from Duncombe, at noon precisely.

Small things please country people, and there was not much work being done that day. It was an excuse for a holiday, as eagerly seized upon by the townsfolk, old and young, as by the young gentlemen of Dr Bewley's establishment.

But that was not all. The villages near Plymborough were many, and the people for miles round flocked into the place to see the procession and stop afterwards about the market-place to visit the exhibition of beasts and listen to the band.

The day was gloriously fine, and all promised a famous harvest of sixpences for the great Ramball himself, a man as punctual in his appointments as he was in the feeding of his beasts, this being carried out regularly at certain times, but, unfortunately for the animals, in uncertain quantities dependent upon the supplies.

Dr Bewley's boys took their places along the forms quite an hour before noon, this punctuality having something to do with getting the best places, as they put it, though--as the forms were in a line under the brick wall, which was low enough with their help for the shortest boy to see over, and the procession would pass close beneath--it was hard to see any difference in the positions, or why the form reserved for the masters was any better than that at the extreme end.

But certainly the masters' form was considered the best from the fact that it stood first, while the nearest end of the next form was taken up in spite of his declaration by Slegge, whose greatest admirers got as close to him as they could or as he would allow.

"Let's go and stand with them," said Singh, as they crossed over to the wall.

"Oh, I don't know," replied his companion. "I vote we go right to the other end along with the juniors."

"Very well," said Singh with a laugh; "but they'll say it's because we're afraid."

"Yes," replied Glyn coolly; "but let them. I don't think we are." And leading the way, he made for the last form, which they had all to themselves, and stood there quietly looking down at the crowd below and along the Duncombe road, which was pretty well lined with people standing about or seated in cart or chaise waiting for the coming sight.

The masters were not in such a hurry, and they remained in the house talking together, so that they were not present to see the skylarking and listen to the banter going on, a good deal of which was set going by Slegge, who was in a high state of glee, and scattered a great deal of chaff, to the great delight of his parasites, who eagerly conveyed insulting messages from their chief to the two new pupils at the other end of the line--at least, they bore those that were not too offensive; others that seemed likely to produce some form of resentment from the lads they attacked were sent on by the youngest boys.

All this palled after a time, and a certain amount of whispering beginning close at hand, Slegge asked sharply what the whisperers were talking about, when silence ensued, no one present daring to repeat the remark which Burney had made, which was to the effect that old Slegge had said that he was not going to stoop to see the miserable procession, but all the same he had taken the best place.

The consequence was that Slegge guessed pretty correctly that something was being whispered dealing with him, and he was just growing fiercely insistent and threatening what he would do if somebody did not confess, when the masters came upon the scene and took their places; while directly after there was a loud cheer, for from out of the distance came the faintly heard throbbing of a drum.

Everything else was now forgotten. Eyes and ears were strained, and minutes elapsed before the pulsations caused by the beating of two balls upon the tightly stretched skin began to grow nearer, and Mr Rampson commenced a discussion to fill up the time by throwing quotations from the old Roman authors at his fellow-tutors and the older boys.

It was a favourable moment for calling a drum a tympanum and giving descriptions of the different forms, curves, and lengths of the various trumpets used by the Roman soldiery in their warlike processions, all of which Slegge voted bosh, and intimated his opinion to the next boy that old Rampson had better go to the other end of the forms and pour it out on the two new fellows.

At last, though, the pulsations of the well-belaboured drum came nearer and were mingled with the mournfully plaintive notes of the wind instruments being blown by the band, the performers seated in a tall triumphal car decorated in scarlet and gold, and ornamented by a gilt carving meant to represent the giant anaconda of South America embracing and crushing the twenty bandsmen of Ramball's show, gentlemen who, by the way, wore a richly worsted-embroidered uniform of scarlet baize, the braid being yellow ochre of the deepest dye.

The carving round the car was either a two-headed anaconda or a combination of two performing an evolution in twists about the musicians, tying them up apparently, from the spectators' point of view, in horrible knots and giving them a terrible aspect of suffering, the apparent pressure of the serpents' folds causing their faces and cheeks to swell out in an appalling way, and their eyes to start from their sockets, while their sufferings seemed to produce wails, shrieks, and cries for help or mercy, mingled with groans, as the men worked hard with a perfect battery of old-fashioned key-bugles, supported by ophicleide and bassoon.

Most painful were the shrieking, strident cries produced by a pair of clarinets, and altogether there came from out of the knots of the serpents a hideous chaos of sound, drawn onward by a team of six horses, and received with wild cheers by the crowd, for it was really the new triumphal march freshly down from town, but in which the bandsmen were not perfect as regarded their parts.

"Is that music or the roarings and cries of some of the beasts?" whispered Singh.

There was a burst of laughter from the boys who heard the native remark, which made Singh turn round upon them angrily; but at a touch from Glyn he smiled good-humouredly, and then laughed aloud.

"Well, it was a stupid thing to say," he cried. "Of course it's the music."

"I say, Singh," burst in Glyn, and he nodded towards the huge drum that was suspended at the back in the highest part of the car, hung, as it were, between the curling tails of the two gilt serpents. "I say," he cried, "wouldn't that astonish the people at Dour? What would they say to that for a tom-tom?"

"Ah!" cried Singh, "I'll buy one like that, and take it back with us when we go home."

"No, I say, don't," cried Glyn. "They make noise enough there as it is."

"Noise!" echoed Singh. "They don't call that noise."

As they were speaking the great six-horse car rumbled slowly by, with the drummer beating hard and the buglers and trombonists blowing their best; while the crowd, taking up the cheer started by the boys, sent it echoing along towards the main street, where, coming slowly along, and stretching as far as eye could reach, there was a long line of caravans, all exceedingly plain and of a uniform yellow colour, with the names of their contents painted on them in black letters.

The place of honour was given to the king of beasts, for the first of the cars bore the word "Lions;" but probably his majesty was asleep, for not so much as a muttering purr on a large scale came from the narrow grating at the top.

Tigers followed; the next car held leopards, each carriage being of the same uniform level, with the black letters; and, coming slowly after them, were about two score, kept a good distance apart so as to lengthen the line as much as possible.

But at first there was nothing else to see, and Singh turned impatiently to his companion, and said: "When does the procession begin?"

"Why, that's the procession," said a small boy close to him, taking the answer upon himself. "The wild beasts are inside. Didn't you know?" And then he proceeded to display his own knowledge. "They draw all the vans up in a square," he began excitedly, "out there in the home-field behind the 'King's Arms,' and then they open the sides of the vans, which are like great shutters on hinges at the top and bottom, so that when they are opened one shutter falls down and covers the wheels, and the other is pulled up, leaving the side all iron bars. Don't you see? Then, instead of being vans, they are turned into dens and cages."

"Is that so?" said Singh quietly.

"Oh, I suppose so," replied Glyn. "I have never seen one of these affairs; but it seems a very reasonable way for building up a place all dens and cages in very short time."

"Oh, look here!" cried another of the boys. "Here's a game! Look at that nigger!"

Singh started as if he had been stung, and was about to turn furiously upon the boy, under the impression that he was the nigger in question; but at the same moment he caught sight of a full-blooded, woolly-headed West Coast African leading a very large camel by a rope, the great ungainly beast mincing and blinking as it gently put down, one after the other, its soft, spongy feet, which seemed to spread out on the gravelled road, while their high-shouldered owner kept on turning its bird-like head from side to side, muttering and whining discontentedly, as if objecting to be seen by such an elongated crowd, and murmuring against being made the one visible object of the show.

The camel was not an attractive creature, for, in addition to its natural peculiarities of shape, it was the time of year for shedding its long hairy coat, and this was hanging in ragged ungainly locks and flakes all along its flanks and about its loping, unhealthy-looking hump.

This was something to look at, and the excited boys shouted, cheered, and gave forth remark after remark such as must have been painful to the dignity of the melancholy-looking beast, which kept on turning its half-closed, plaintive-looking eyes at the noisy groups, wincing and seeming to protest against the unkindly and insulting remarks.

"Oh, I say, isn't he a beauty?" cried one.

"Yes; it's just like a four-legged bird," shouted another.

"That's right. They've caught Sindbad's roc and clipped his wings."

"Cut them right off," said Glyn laughingly, joining in the mirth. "Poor fellow, look how he's moulting!"

There was a burst of laughter at this, and as it ceased another boy shouted:

"Ought its hump to wobble like that, and hang over all on one side?"

"That isn't its hump," cried Burney; "that's its cistern in which it carries its drinking-water. Don't you know they can go for days without wanting any more? Can't you see it's empty now?"

"Poor camel!" said one of the boys.

"Yes, poor, and no mistake! Why, it's all in rags," cried Burney, and the unhappy-looking beast went mincing on, to be followed by another van labelled "Birds." Then came one labelled ominously and in very large letters, "Serpents;" those next in succession containing antelopes, nylghaus, crocodiles, eagles, rhinoceroses, zebras, monkeys, orang-outangs, chimpanzees, rib-nosed baboons, and so on, and so on, cage after cage, den after den, a procession of so many painted yellow vans drawn by very unsatisfactory-looking horses, till, as the last one came into sight far on the right, it was observed by the boys as they stood leaning their elbows on the wall that there was something special being kept for the finale, for the crowd was closing in behind and coming on surrounding this last van.

"Oh, I shall be so glad when it's all over," said Singh. "I would have said let's go away ever so long ago, only the Doctor might think it disagreeable after he had given us leave to see."

"Yes, it would have looked bad," replied Glyn. "It seems to me such a shame," he continued, "getting us all here to see a procession of wild beasts, and all we have seen is a camel."

"But don't you see--" began Singh.

"Of course; I said so. I have seen a camel. But if the man let the people see all his wild beasts they wouldn't pay to go into his show."

"Oh," cried Singh, "that's it. I never thought of that. Of course. But what are the people all crowding up for behind that last van?"

"Because it's the end," said the small boy who had spoken before.

"No; but there's something they can see, for they are all pressing close up, and the boys are stooping down to look underneath."

"Yes, and there's a man with a whip trying to keep them back."

That was all plain enough to view as the great van, drawn by four stout cart-horses, came nearer, with the whip-armed carter who walked by their side varying his position to cross round by the back, making-believe to use his whip and keep the boys from getting too close.

"Well, they can see something," said Glyn, as the great vehicle came nearly abreast; and as it did the lad gripped his companion by the shoulder.

"Look, look!" he cried. "My word, it is queer!"

"What is?" said Singh excitedly.

"Two pairs of giants' trousers walking underneath the van. There, can't you see? Oh, isn't it comic. And they don't fit."

"Nonsense," cried Singh excitedly. "It's a big elephant underneath there, and he's so heavy he has broken through the bottom of the wagon."

It certainly gave a stranger that impression; but the young Indian was not right. It was only the showman's ingenious device to convey his huge attraction from town to town unseen save just so much as would whet the spectator's curiosity and make him wish to see more.

"Dear me," said a rich, unctuous voice just behind the lads; and the boys started round at the familiar tones, to see the benignant-looking Doctor blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles and commenting upon the spectacle for the benefit of his younger pupils. "You see, my dear lads," he began, "a monstrous animal like that must weigh tons, and would be too heavy for the horses to--"

The Doctor's words were drowned by the roar of laughter that arose from behind the wall, for Glyn's comment had been taken up quickly, and ran from end to end of the line, with the result that, like a chorus dominating their laughter, the boys joined in one insane shout of:

"Trousers! trousers!"

The next moment it was over the wall and running through the crowd, who caught it up and began to yell out the name of the familiar object of attire, staid elderly men holding their sides and laughing, boys shrieking with delight and pointing under the van at the two pairs of huge pillar-like legs with the loose skin hanging about them like some specimen of giant frieze, till, as the van moved on, the driver grew frantic and began to smack his whip; while, to add to the tumult, there arose from within a peculiar hoarse trumpeting roar that can only be put into print by the words: _Phoomp! phoomp! phoomp_!

"Ha!" cried Singh excitedly, and he gripped at Glyn's arm so sharply that he made him wince. "Hark at him! Hark at him!" he whispered hoarsely in the boy's ear. "The jungle! the jungle! Why, it must be a big bull elephant. Oh, we must go and see him to-night!"

Singh saw him the next minute; for, startled by the terrific roar behind them, and probably knowing well the power of the utterer, the four draught horses began to suffer from panic. One began to rear and plunge, and before the driver, who was close to the hind wheels, could force his way through the crowd and seize its rein, it made a dash for the sidewalk farthest from the Doctor's wall. Like gregarious beasts, its companions went with it; the front of the van was wrenched round and the off fore-wheel ascended the path, while at the same moment, as the furious trumpeting continued, there was a crash, one side of the van was heaved up as if by an internal earthquake, and the next moment, amidst the noise of splintering wood, the plunging of horses, and the elephant's deafening roar, the great yellow vehicle lay over on its side, and the monstrous beast, fully ten feet high, stood panting and trumpeting with uplifted trunk by the side of the ruins, glaring round as if seeking which enemy to charge. _

Read next: Chapter 5. An Al-Fresco Lunch

Read previous: Chapter 3. The Prince's Regalia

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