The audience, too, instinctively felt that the act was not
ending as it should.
Phil was falling. He was plunging straight toward the ring, head
first. He struck heavily, crumpling up in a little heap, then
straightening out, while half a dozen attendants ran to the lad,
hastily picking him up and hurrying to the dressing tent with the
limp, unconscious form.
CHAPTER XVII
LEFT BEHIND
"Is he hurt much?"
"Don't know. Maybe he's broken his neck."
This brief dialogue ensued between two painted clowns hurrying to
their stations.
In the meantime the band struck up a lively air, the clowns
launched into a merry medley of song and jest and in a few
moments the spectators forgot the scene they had just witnessed,
in the noise, the dash and the color. It would come back to them
later like some long-past dream.
Mr. Kennedy, with grim, set face, uttered a stern command to
Emperor, who for a brief instant had stood irresolute, as if
pondering as to whether he should turn and plunge for the red
silk curtains behind which his little friend had disappeared in
the arms of the attendants.
The trainer's voice won, and Emperor trumpeting loudly, took his
way to his quarters without further protest.
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