THE BLAZING CABIN
At such close quarters Bomba could not use his bow, and he dared not
fire the revolver lest it attract the attention of lurking foes.
Rising into the air, he came down with both feet on his enemy’s head.
Then he stamped the head into the mud and ooze till the savage lay
still.
Whether the man breathed or not, Bomba did not stop to inquire. It was
enough that he had been put out of action. The noise of the struggle,
muffled as it had been, might already be drawing others to the scene.
Bomba must act swiftly, if he were to leave the spot alive.
One of his precious minutes he gave to the search for his machete. With
its aid he might still win through to Casson at the hut of Pipina. By
a stroke of good fortune he found the weapon where it had stuck in the
trunk of a tree.
With a smothered cry of elation, Bomba leaped upon it and wrenched it
from its hold. Again and again that knife had saved his life, and it
might do it again before the night was over.
Bomba’s body was bruised, he was dead tired, but his spirit was unhurt.
The thirst of battle was still in him. His blood was hot with it.
Twice to-night he had outwitted his enemies. Nascanora and his
half-brother Tocarora would again realize that he, Bomba, was as
slippery as the cooanaradi and as deadly.
He wasted no time. He set his feet in the direction of the cabin of
Pipina, the squaw, and went stealthily yet swiftly through the jungle.
The storm had felled great trees across his path. Some of these he
climbed over, while he took the smaller ones with a leap. Where the
ground was impassable he swung himself along from creeper to creeper
and branch to branch. No inhabitant of the jungle save the monkeys
were as skilled in this method of progress as Bomba, and he made his
way with amazing celerity. Never had that accomplishment stood him in
better stead.
His eyes and ears were alert for the slightest sight or sound that
might forebode danger. But this did not prevent his mind from being in
a tumult of varied emotions.
His most anxious thought was of Casson, Casson alone in the jungle hut
save for Pipina. Again the headhunters sought the life of Casson.
Again was Bomba hunted like the veriest wild beast.
Bitterness welled up in the heart of the lad against these savages,
whom he had never injured except in self-defense. Why was he doomed to
spend his life among these people so alien to him?
Bomba was white. All his yearnings were toward those of his own race.
Who were his parents? He thought of the picture of the beautiful woman
that had hung in the little back room of Sobrinini’s hut on the island
of snakes. That face had stirred his heart as no other had ever done.
Was the beautiful woman his mother?
Who was he? What had happened to his parents and why had he become at
so early an age the sole companion of old Cody Casson?
He reviewed the strange behavior of the half-mad old woman, Sobrinini,
she who had once been the operatic idol of Europe, she who had had
kings at her feet. Why had she not finished the story of the man named
Bartow, his wife, Laura, and the child they called Bonny?
Sobrinini had called him, Bomba, by the name of Bartow. She had thought
in her poor twisted mind that Bomba was Bartow. Was it possible that
Bomba was the boy who had once been called Bonny?
Bomba heaved a heavy sigh. Questions, questions always, and no answers.
Cody Casson had the key to the mystery. But poor Casson must first find
the key to that closed door in his mind beyond which he could not go.
His mind in a whirl of unrest and longing, Bomba at last reached the
river which he must cross to reach the hut of Pipina.
The storm had now entirely died away. Only the heavy dripping of
moisture from the foliage betrayed its recent passage. The jungle was
still again with an unearthly stillness. The slight swish made by Bomba
as he swung himself from branch to branch was the only sound that broke
the silence.
Suddenly he paused and hung motionless, arms and legs entwined about
a bunch of creepers. His quick ear had caught a sound other than the
dripping of water on the sodden earth.
It was a slight sound, but Bomba knew at once what had caused it. It
was the faint dip of paddles in the water. The Indians were traveling
upstream. The headhunters of Nascanora were on their way to the hut of
Pipina to spread terror and death. Fortunate if death were all! Far
worse would be the tortures of any captives who might be carried off
alive to make a holiday for the savages who had been left at home and
who would revel in the screams of their victims.
Bomba had been carrying his machete between his teeth. Now he dropped
lightly to the ground, and, with the double-edged knife held firmly in
his grasp, ran swiftly toward the river.
Upon the banks of the stream he paused, listening. Still the dip, dip
of paddles coming upstream. So faint and stealthy was the sound that it
would have been inaudible to most ears other than those of Bomba.
The lad wasted not an instant, but slipped from the steep bank until he
was waist deep in the sluggish water. The dense foliage of the jungle
trees grew down to the very edge of the stream, flinging its rank
growth out over the water.
Bomba had a canoe of his own concealed in the bushes some distance
up the stream. Had there been time, he would have made for that, for
he well knew the danger of making the river crossing by fording or
swimming. The deadly alligator, or cayman, infested all the waters of
the jungle, and any daring person that ventured to cross knew that he
might pay for the venture with his life.
But time was everything to Bomba now. The headhunters were more to be
feared than the cayman. The former were awake. The latter might be
asleep. At all costs, he must make the venture. He must make haste, if
he were to save the life of Casson and that of Pipina.
Bomba had let himself go so gently into the water as scarcely to make
a ripple, and he moved on noiselessly, wading where he could, but soon
reaching the deeper channel where he had to swim. Then most of the time
he swam under water lest his presence be declared to prying eyes. He
was almost as much at home in the water as on land, and only at long
intervals had to come to the surface for air.
But swiftly as he swam, the Indians could paddle more swiftly. And a
terrible fear gripped the lad’s heart as the sound of the paddles grew
ever fainter in the distance.
They would reach the hut first. They would find it undefended and might
attack at once. The worst might have happened before Bomba could reach
the only place he called home.
What he would do when he got there he had not figured out. He would act
as the occasion suggested. He would be but one against many; but he had
been in that position more than once and yet won the victory.
He swam on swiftly until he was arrested by a sight that brought a
growl of fury to his lips.
Turning a bend in the river, a light assailed Bomba’s eyes, a fearful
light, a light such as the native of the jungle dreads above all
others. It was a dull glow, brightening now and then to a vivid red as
the flames swept skyward.
Bomba groaned and his teeth gritted against each other as he plunged
madly forward. For he knew all too well what had caused the glare. The
hut of Pipina was ablaze!
This was the work of Nascanora’s bucks, their revenge upon a broken,
demented old man who had never harmed any one in his life!
Was Casson in that blazing hut? Was poor Pipina, faithful friend,
caught in that flaming inferno?
Scarcely daring to put these questions to himself, Bomba swam madly
upstream, his one thought now of revenge. He was consumed by rage. His
one desire was to feel the throat of Nascanora beneath his fingers.
The light was brighter now. The whole jungle was bathed in the fiendish
glow.
Bomba turned toward the bank, but paused abruptly and trod water.
Between him and the shore, blocking his path, was a monster alligator!