EYES THAT GLARED
With an exclamation of impatience, Bomba broke the spell that was
stealing over him and leaped to his feet.
“Bomba will go!” he cried, and his vibrant voice rang out like a
challenge through the jungle. “Is Bomba a woman to listen to such
things and tremble? Shall he whimper as the monkey whimpers when he
hears the roar of the jaguar? No! Bomba will go. He will face the
jaguars. He will face the ghosts. He will face the demons. Bomba has
spoken!”
Ashati gave vent to a wailing cry and Neram covered his face with his
hands. In their superstitious fancy Bomba was already as good as dead.
“Bomba is brave,” Ashati moaned, “but it is not well to brave the
things that come from another world.”
“Bomba’s life is his own,” returned the lad. “He does with it as he
wills. He would rather die than have it said that Bomba was afraid.”
There was silence for a time following his declaration. The ex-slaves
were wrapped in gloom. They loved Bomba, and would have given their
lives for him. But they knew the boy well enough to be sure that he
would not recede an inch from the plan that he had formed.
Bomba himself was thinking deeply. It had been in his mind to ask
Ashati and Neram to accompany him. The loneliness of his days and
nights was wearing upon him. It would be good to have companionship,
some one to whom he could talk at times and unburden his heart. Then,
too, Ashati and Neram were skilled in woodcraft and could be of service
to him in this wild and unknown part of the country.
But he dismissed the thought almost as soon as it came to him. He did
not want to drag them into danger. It was his own personal errand on
which he was going, and he himself must face all that was involved in
it. He knew that they would go if he asked them, even though they felt
sure that they were going to their death. There was no limit to their
devotion. But he would not accept the sacrifice.
Something of what he was thinking must have been felt by them, for
Ashati came to him, prostrated himself on the ground and put Bomba’s
foot upon his neck.
“Ashati will go with Bomba,” he said. “Bomba is Ashati’s chief. Twice
he has saved Ashati’s life. His life belongs to Bomba.”
“Yes,” put in Neram, “we will follow Bomba even to the land of ghosts
and demons.”
The lad was profoundly touched, for he knew that each believed that he
was signing his own death warrant.
“Ashati and Neram are good, and Bomba will not forget,” he said. “But
where Bomba goes he must go alone. And now Bomba has spoken, and there
is no need for more words about his going. But it may be that Ashati
and Neram can tell Bomba some good words about the trail and what he
must do to get to Jaguar Island when he reaches the great water.”
“Ashati and Neram have never been in that part of the jungle,” said the
latter. “But they have heard about it from the old men of the tribe.
It is two days’ journey beyond the Giant Cataract that Bomba must go
before he reaches the great water. Then he must get a canoe or a raft
and let the water carry him where it will. He will not need a paddle,
except to steer, for the water is very strong and it will carry him
until he touches Jaguar Island.”
Again a shudder stole through Neram as he mentioned that sinister name.
Ashati added further details of the journey, and by the time the
conference was finished Bomba had gained a great deal of information
that would be of service to him.
“It is well,” said the lad. “And now it is time that we sleep, for
Bomba must start as soon as the sun comes up in the sky. We will gather
wood and make a great fire to make the beasts afraid, and then we shall
rest.”
He proposed that they should take turns in watching, lest the fire
should go down. But Neram would not hear of this. That much at least he
could do for his master. He would watch through the whole night so that
Bomba could get the rest he needed for the task that lay before him.
And finding that Neram was so much in earnest, Bomba did not protest.
The boy slept as soon as his head touched the ground, and did not wake
till he felt Neram’s hand upon his shoulder at the first streak of dawn.
The faithful ex-slave had composed a savory stew, and they all ate
heartily. Ashati’s arm, though still painful, was much better, and a
great deal of the swelling had gone down.
“And now,” said Bomba, as he made a last examination of his weapons,
“it is time for Bomba to go. He will think often of Ashati and Neram
and will be glad that they are in the maloca of the good chief Hondura.
They will be good to Pipina and bring her much meat. And they will try
to find Casson. If they do find him, Bomba’s heart will be more glad
than it has been for many moons.”
“Neram and Ashati will do what they can to find Casson,” promised the
former.
“And they will give much meat to the medicine man so that he may pray
to his gods for Bomba,” added Ashati.
With a last wave of the hand, Bomba left them, and they stood looking
after him until the jungle swallowed him up. Then, with heavy hearts,
they took the backward trail to Hondura’s camp.
Bomba went on at a good rate of speed. The sound sleep that he had
enjoyed had recuperated him immensely. Thanks, too, to the explicit
information he had got from the ex-slaves, he now moved with more
certainty directly toward his goal.
He grieved for Sobrinini, for, though he had no deep affection for the
old woman, she had been kind to him. Then, too, she had been a sort of
slender link between him and the parents he had never known well enough
to remember. Sobrinini had known them and had sought to tell Bomba
about them, but the twist in her poor brain had made it impossible. She
had, however, given him the clue to Japazy as possessing the knowledge
he sought, and for this Bomba was grateful.
Much more than for Sobrinini did he sorrow for Casson. Dear old Casson
had been a part of his life. It was hard to think of existence without
him. And he had been white, so different from the brown-skinned natives
with their ignorance, their superstition, their narrowed lives.
White! That was the most precious word in Bomba’s limited vocabulary.
For it marked him out as different from the forms of life by which he
was surrounded. He wanted to be different. He wanted to be like Gillis
and Dorn, the white rubber hunters, the men who laughed and slapped
each other on the back. There was little laughter in the jungle. Bomba
wanted some companion, some one with whom he could laugh, whom he could
slap on the back. Some one like Frank Parkhurst, who had seen so much,
who had told him about the great ocean, of mighty cities.
He thought of the promises of the rubber hunters and the Parkhursts
that they would come back and take Bomba from the jungle. No doubt they
had been sincere enough at the time, but many moons had passed now with
no word from them. Perhaps they had been killed by savages or wild
beasts before they got back to the coast.
More likely, Bomba thought, with a tinge of bitterness, they had
forgotten him.
“After all,” he said to himself, “what is Bomba but a thing of the
jungle? They would be ashamed to show him to their white friends. And
yet that thing of the jungle saved their lives. Bomba’s knife was
good when they needed it. Bomba’s arrows were good. But now they have
forgotten him as the jungle forgets the mists after the sun has risen.”
But into these gloomy ponderings shot a gleam of hope. Japazy still was
left! He might tell him of his parents, who they were and where they
lived. If he did, Bomba would search out those parents, even if they
were at the other end of the world. How glad he would be to see them!
And how glad they would be to see him!
But would they be glad? Or would they, too, be ashamed of Bomba, the
boy of the jungle, the boy of the puma skin, the boy who tore his food
with his fingers when he ate, the boy who had shyly watched Gillis and
Dorn at their meals and wished that he could eat as they did.
But no! That lovely woman who had smiled down at him from the picture
in the hut of Sobrinini, if she were indeed his mother, would not be
ashamed of Bomba. She would gather him to her heart. She would kiss
him, as the woman with the golden hair had kissed him when he had saved
her from the headhunters of Nascanora.
For some time past, as he journeyed on engrossed in thought, Bomba had
been conscious of a rumbling in the distance. It was so far away that
he had paid little attention to it. Now it had grown louder, and it
forced itself upon his attention.
Was it thunder? The sky was azure and the sun was shining with dazzling
brilliance. The sound could not be thunder.
Then the truth broke upon Bomba. It was the roar of the Giant Cataract!
That mighty body of water was miles and miles away, but the sound
carried far in the clear air.
Bomba was perhaps twenty miles to the left of it. Now he hastened to
make the distance still greater. For at the Giant Cataract was the
village of Nascanora, he whose nose Bomba had crushed, he who was
reserving a special place on the top of his wigwam for the head of the
jungle boy who had shamed him before his followers and defied him.
Bomba described a wide semicircle that would bring him to the river
he sought many miles above the Giant Cataract. He had little fear of
meeting any headhunters in the district toward which he was heading,
for they were probably imbued with same superstitious fear of Japazy
and Jaguar Island that had possessed Ashati and Neram, and would give
the region a wide berth. Still, it was well to take no chances, and he
drove from his mind for the moment all thoughts of his parentage and
devoted himself strictly to the matter in hand.
By the evening of the next day, he figured, he would reach the river
bank. Then he would make his raft and launch himself into the unknown.
The strong current of the river would carry him along to Jaguar Island.
To what else? To the knowledge that he craved? Or to death?
If the former, he would be supremely happy. If the latter--well, Bomba
had known how to live. He would know how to die.
As the shades of night were drawing on he came to an old ramshackle
native hut, long since abandoned. There was no door. Only the four
walls were standing, and they were bending crazily.
Even at that, however, it offered more protection than that to which
the lad had been accustomed. He could build a big fire before the door
of the hut. That would protect him on one side, and the walls would
shelter him on the other three sides from the incursions of serpents
and wild beasts.
He had had a hard, exhausting day and was very tired. He built his
fire, brought water from a little stream near at hand, made a native
tea from bitter leaves he gathered and feasted heartily upon the tapir
meat, of which he had yet a considerable store on hand.
Then he lay down to sleep on the earthen floor of the hut. His tired
eyes closed almost instantly.
How long he slept he did not know. But he was awakened at last by a
queer sensation, as though he were rocking up and down in a canoe.
His first thought was of earthquake. It was a common enough occurrence
in that district, which had once abounded in volcanoes, most of them
now extinct.
But there was no roar or rumbling, such as usually accompanied a quake.
There was no sound save the usual buzz and hum of the jungle.
Bomba sprang to his feet, every sense on the alert.
Beneath the place where he had been lying the earthen floor was heaving
like the waves.
Then it broke apart, and from the shattered opening rose a great head
whose open jaws were armed with terrible rows of teeth.
Bomba looked into the fiery eyes of a monster alligator!