“I must stop them—­I will warn them!” panted Andy with resolution.  “If I got to the manager he might not understand me or believe me.  It might be too late—­there is not a minute to spare.”

Andy was quivering with excitement, his eyes flashing, his face flushed.

He ran towards a guy rope, sprang up, caught at it, and hand over hand rapidly ascended it.

Where it tapped the lower dip of the upper canvas, he transferred his grasp.

A seam was here, held together by hook and ring clear to the gap at the centre pole.  This seam, Andy discerned, ran right over to the trapezes.

Andy scaled the course of the seam with the agility of a monkey, hooking the rings with his fingers and pulling himself up.  The canvas quivered, shook and gave, but he did not heed that.

He came to the open gap around the centre pole, seized the bound edge of the canvas, and gazed down.

Ten feet across was old Benares, just getting ready for some evolutions.  Directly under Andy was the trapeze holding the man he supposed to be Thacher.  Over his head swung a smaller trapeze.

Andy lay flat along the sloping canvas and stuck his head further down.

“Mr. Thacher!  Mr. Thacher!” he shouted.

“Eh, why, hello!  Who are you?”

In wonderment the trapezist gazed up at the earnest, agitated face gazing down at him.

At that juncture there was an ominous rip.  Andy’s weight it seemed had pressed too forcibly down upon a rotted section of the canvas.

A strip about a foot wide tore free, binding and all, from the edge nearest the centre pole.  It split six feet sheer.  Andy’s feet went over his head, but he kept a tight grip on the end of the strip.

Dangling in mid air sixty feet above the saw-dust ring, Andy swung in space dizzy-headed, his first appearance before the circus public.

CHAPTER XI

SAWDUST AND SPANGLES

Andy stared down at a sea of faces.  They seemed far away.  The circus manager had stepped briskly out into the ring.

In great wonderment he stood gazing aloft.  The audience swayed, and a general murmur filled the air.  Many pointed upwards.  Some arose from their seats, craning their necks in excitement.

The orchestra dropped the music to low, undecided notes.  Puzzled spectators wondered if the strange appearance above was part of some new novelty change in the programme.

Andy clung to the dangling strip of canvas for dear life.  The trapezist, Thacher, stared at him in profound astonishment.  He was about to speak, to demand an explanation, when there was a second ripping sound.

“Look out!” cried Thacher sharply.

Andy saw what was happening.  The canvas strip that had torn free lengthwise was now splitting its breadth.

In another moment a mere filament of cloth would hold Andy suspended.  He must act, and act quickly, or take a plunge sixty feet down.