Turning was impossible, for the crowd was rushing back on us, blocking us up; and Eustace dropped the reins, turning round with a cry of “Harry!  Harry!  I see him.  Take us away!”

Harold sprang on the back seat as the coachman jumped down to run to the horses’ heads.  He saw over the people’s heads, and after that glance made one bound out of the carriage.  I saw then what I shall never forget, across the wide open space round which the principal shows were arranged, and which was now entirely bare of people.  On the other side, between the shafts of a waggon, too low for him to creep under, lay the great yellow lion, waving the tufted end of his tail as a cat does, when otherwise still, showing the glassy glare of his eyes now and then, growling with a horrible display of fangs, and holding between those huge paws a senseless boy as a sort of hostage. >From all the lanes between the booths the people were looking in terror, ready for a rush on the beast’s least movement, shrieking calls to someone to save the boy, fetch a gun, bring the keeper, &c.

That moment, with the great thick carriage-rug on his arm, Harold darted forward, knocking down a gun which some foolish person had brought from a shooting-gallery, and shouting, “Don’t!  It will only make him kill the boy!” he gathered himself up for a rush; while I believe we all called to him to stop:  I am sure of Eustace’s “Harry! don’t!  What shall I do?”

Before the words were spoken, Harold had darted to the side of the terrible creature, and, with a bound, vaulted across its neck as it lay, dealing it a tremendous blow over the nose with that sledge-hammer fist, and throwing the rug over its head.  Horrible roaring growls, like snarling thunder, were heard for a second or two, and one man dashed out of the frightened throng, rifle in hand, just in time to receive the child, whom Harold flung to him, snatched from the lion’s grasp; and again we saw a wrestling, struggling, heaving mass, Harry still uppermost, pinning the beast down with his weight and the mighty strength against which it struggled furiously.  Having got free of the boy, his one ally was again aiming his rifle at the lion’s ear, when two keepers, with nets and an iron bar, came on the scene, one shouting not to shoot, and the other holding up the bar and using some word of command, at which the lion cowered and crouched.  The people broke into a loud cheer after their breathless silence, and it roused the already half-subdued lion.  There was another fierce and desperate struggle, lasting only a moment, and ended by the report of the rifle.

In fact, the whole passed almost like a flash of lightning from the moment of our first halt, till the crowd closed in, so that I could only see one bare yellow head, towering above the hats, and finally cleaving a way towards us, closely followed by Dermot Tracy, carrying the rifle and almost beside himself with enthusiasm and excitement.  “Lucy—­is it you?  What, he is your cousin?  I never saw anything like it!  He mastered it alone, quite alone!”