The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus Read Online Free PDF Page A

Clown began, looking up all the time as if whatever it was might fall through the ceiling on top of him. “There’s something on the roof.”
    “Oh really?” said Mr. Bacchus. “What sort of thing, my boy?”
    “I, for one, don’t wish to look,” pronounced Malachi. “It will almost certainly have three heads, two spiked tails, and roar like a fish.”
    “Fish don’t roar,” said Domingo.
    “You haven’t met the fish I’ve met,” replied Malachi. “The ones that lurk in the drowned dhows at the bottom of the Nile and roar like lions.”
    “Oh really, crocodile,” said Hero. “I doubt very much if you have ever seen the Nile, never mind its bottom.”
    Before Malachi could reply to that accusation, the Ibis-bird squawked again, and the thing on the roof began to jump up and down, screeching and gibbering insanely.
    “Listen to that,” said Malachi, his eyes rolling. “That is distinctly the roaring of your Lion-Fish! It’s flown here all the way from the Nile, and is now perching on our roof.”
    Ophelia began to sob: “I wish I’d been a nun,” she said. “Instead of joining a Circus.”
    “Fear not, my dear,” said Mr. Bacchus, enveloping her in a protective arm.
    “Hero is going out to tell the Great Beast to get off of our roof, aren’t you, Hero?”
    “Am I?” said Hero nervously.
    “Indeed you are, my boy, indeed you are. It’s no trouble for a fellow with your pectorals, now is it?”
    “Isn’t it?” replied Hero.
    “Of course not,” said Bacchus.
    “What if it is a Flying Lion-Fish?” said Malachi. “Where will we get another strongman from, at this time of night?”
    “If it is a Lion-Fish,” said Bacchus, slapping Hero on the back, “Wrestle it! Capture it, my boy, and we shall all be rich! Imagine that, the only Circus in the world with a flying Lion-Fish! Why, when we go to Cathay, think of the fortune that will await us! Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and his flying Lion-Fish.”
    “Wait a moment,” put in Hero. “If I capture it, then surely it will be my Lion-Fish?”
    “Ah, but it’s chosen to land on my roof,” said Mr. Bacchus.
    “True,” said Hero. “Then we shall share the fortune. Agreed?”
    “Agreed,” said Mr. Bacchus. “Now, child, get up there and wrestle it, or we shall have it through the ceiling.”
    Suddenly, Ophelia let out a horrified squeal, and pointed to the window.
    “The Fish!” she cried. “It’s the Fish.”
    There was a face at the window. A hideous face. The fanged mouth was upon its forehead, and the pig-like eyes were where the mouth should have been. A scraggly orange beard hung from the wrinkled chin, but there was no sign of either a neck or a body. The nose was flat and pressed against the window, and out of the top of the head grew a hairy shape that might have been the beginnings of a malformed fin.
    “Oh, NO,” said Malachi. “That’s not a Flying Lion-Fish. That’s much more horrible.”
    At the sight of the disembodied head, Mr. Bacchus leapt up and rushed to the window, shouting:
    “Remove yourself from my caravan, friend!” and beat upon the glass with his stick.
    Immediately, the head disappeared, and the thing began to jump up and down on the roof again, screeching. The caravan rocked, and everyone toppled over onto Malachi.
    “Remove yourselves!” demanded the crocodile, “Or undoubtedly I shall consume the first limb I set eyes upon.”
    “Well,” said Angelo, engineering himself out of the pile. “We can’t stay here all night, hoping the next gust will blow it back to the Abyss. I’m going out to see what it is.”
    “Oh, do be careful,” said Ophelia.
    “Of course,” replied Angelo, and picking up the wooden sword Malachi used in his rendering of “Das Rheingold,” he opened the caravan door and was enveloped by the darkness. Inside the caravan, everyone waited, straining their ears. But there was silence once more. Even the gibbering stopped.
    “I’m going out to help him,” said Domingo,