The audience half rose. The
tent shook from end to end.
"Sit down!" bellowed the ringmaster. "It's only a puff of wind."
Before the words were out of his mouth a piercing scream roused
the audience almost to the verge of panic.
Phil, whose attention had been drawn to the people for the
moment, shot a swift glance up into the somber haze of the peak
of the big top.
Something had happened. But what?
"They're falling!" he gasped.
The blow had loosened nearly every bit of the aerial apparatus
under the circus tent.
"There go the trapeze performers!"
Down they came, landing with a whack in the net with their
apparatus tumbling after them. But they were out of the net in a
twinkling, none the worse for their accident. Almost at the same
moment there were other screams.
"There go the rings!"
There was no net under the flying ring performers. Two of them
shot toward the ground. When they struck, one was on top of the
other. The man at the bottom was Signor Navaro, his son having
fallen prone across him. The two other performers in the act had
grabbed a rope and saved themselves.
Men picked the two fallen performers up hastily and bore them to
the dressing tent, where Phil hastened the moment he was sure
that all danger of a panic had passed.
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