[Illustration: THE WATER KEPT RISING HIGHER AND HIGHER.
_Bomba at the Giant Cataract._ _Page 184_]
BOMBA
THE JUNGLE BOY
AT THE GIANT
CATARACT
OR
Chief Nascanora and His Captives
BY
ROY ROCKWOOD
AUTHOR OF “BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY,” “LOST ON
THE MOON,” “THROUGH SPACE TO MARS,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR BOYS
_By_ ROY ROCKWOOD
THE BOMBA BOOKS
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE MOVING MOUNTAIN
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE GIANT CATARACT
GREAT MARVEL SERIES
THROUGH THE AIR TO THE NORTH POLE
UNDER THE OCEAN TO THE SOUTH POLE
FIVE THOUSAND MILES UNDERGROUND
THROUGH SPACE TO MARS
LOST ON THE MOON
ON A TORN-AWAY WORLD
THE CITY BEYOND THE CLOUDS
SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTOR CYCLES
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR RACING AUTO
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE
THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER
DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES
DAVE DASHAWAY, THE YOUNG AVIATOR
DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS HYDROPLANE
DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS GIANT AIRSHIP
DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD
DAVE DASHAWAY, AIR CHAMPION
CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1926, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOMBA THE JUNGLE BOY AT THE GIANT
CATARACT
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE SUDDEN ATTACK 1
II AT GRIPS WITH DEATH 9
III IN THE NICK OF TIME 19
IV A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE 26
V TERRIBLE JAWS 35
VI PURSUED BY AN ALLIGATOR 42
VII CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY 53
VIII THE MAN WITH THE SPLIT NOSE 62
IX THE SAVAGE RAIDERS 69
X IN DEADLY PERIL 80
XI FEROCIOUS FOES 86
XII THE JAGUARS ATTACK 95
XIII THE MAD MONKEY 102
XIV BESET OF ENEMIES 109
XV LYING IN AMBUSH 116
XVI THE ISLAND OF SNAKES 125
XVII AMID WRITHING SERPENTS 136
XVIII THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 146
XIX A STARTLING INTERRUPTION 153
XX IN THE HANDS OF THE HEADHUNTERS 161
XXI THE GIANT CATARACT 167
XXII RUSPAK GLOATS 173
XXIII A MAD STAMPEDE 180
XXIV IN THE SWIRL OF THE RAPIDS 186
XXV THE RESCUE OF SOBRININI 192
BOMBA THE JUNGLE
BOY AT THE GIANT
CATARACT
CHAPTER I
THE SUDDEN ATTACK
Bomba made his way as silently as a panther through the jungle.
For that jungle abounded in enemies, as the boy had had occasion to
know. At any moment a boa constrictor might drop like a flash from a
tree above and seek to enfold him in its crushing coils. A turn of
the trail might bring him face to face with a crouching jaguar. Or a
cooanaradi, deadliest of all venomous snakes, might launch itself from
the underbrush and inject its poison into his veins.
There were human foes, too, against whom Bomba had to be on his guard.
With the natives who dwelt in that part of the jungle he was on
comparatively friendly terms, though he never mingled with them on a
footing of intimacy.
But from time to time the dreaded headhunters from the faraway region
of the Giant Cataract invaded this district in search of the hideous
trophies which their name implied wherewith to adorn their wigwams.
Their coming was a signal for the native inhabitants to flee, carrying
along with them their children and scanty household belongings. The
headhunters were cruel and ruthless, and death and destruction followed
in their wake.
Bomba had seen signs of them that very morning, and he had no desire
for a closer acquaintance. On two previous occasions, he and Casson,
the aged naturalist with whom he lived, had been sought out by these
dreaded savages and had narrowly escaped with their lives. A third time
they might not be so fortunate.
“And as I have only one head, I am exceedingly anxious to keep it on my
shoulders,” the boy had told Casson.
So it was with extreme caution that Bomba threaded his way through the
jungle, his eyes darting from right to left, plumbing the recesses of
every thicket, piercing the foliage of every tree. With him eternal
vigilance was the price, not only of liberty, but of life itself.
There was a sudden rustling in the leaves of a giant dolado tree. Bomba
halted instantly, drew an arrow from his belt and fitted it to the
string of his bow.
But his tense attitude relaxed as the leaves were thrust aside and the
grinning, friendly face of a monkey framed itself in the opening.
“Doto!” exclaimed Bomba, in accents of relief and pleasure, as he waved
his hand to the newcomer.
Welcome was in the tone and gesture, and the monkey dropped from branch
to branch, finally landing lightly on the ground. Its eyes gleamed with
affection as Bomba caressed its head.
The boy--for he was no more than that, being fourteen years old at the
most--presented a striking picture as he stood there with a ray of
sunlight falling athwart his face. He was taller than the average boy
of his age and far more muscular and more sturdily built.
From constant exposure to sun and storm, his face was as bronzed as
that of an Indian, but his features betrayed the fact that he was of
the white race. His eyes and hair were brown, his nose strong and
aquiline, and his firm jaw denoted courage and resolution.
He wore the mendiyeh, or native tunic, and across his breast was slung
a puma skin--that of Geluk, the puma, that he had come across and slain
when it was trying to kill the friendly parrots, Kiki and Woowoo. His
arms and legs were bare, and showed the powerful muscles rippling under
the brown skin at every movement. On his feet were home-made sandals.
In his belt he carried a machete, a two-edged knife fully a foot in
length and ground to an almost razor-like sharpness. A pouch at his
waist held his arrows and a five-chambered revolver, the only firearm
he had ever owned, the gift of two white men whose camp he had saved
from a night attack by jaguars.
“So Doto is glad to see Bomba back!” said the boy as he fondled the
animal’s furry head. “And Bomba is glad to meet Doto again. Bomba has
been away for many days and has seen many things. He has met men whose
hearts are black. He has seen mountains break apart and fire come from
the top. Snakes and jaguars have tried to kill him.”
The monkey uttered sounds that would have been unintelligible to many,
but that Bomba knew were meant to express sympathy. The boy had an
almost uncanny power over animals, and had many friends among the less
savage denizens of the jungle, such as the monkeys and parrots. He
talked to them and they chattered back at him, and they had arrived at
a point where they could understand each other in simple things. Tone
and gesture helped to interpret the words and sounds, and each knew
intuitively whether the other were sad or glad and they shared emotions
in common.
“Bomba’s heart is heavy,” the lad went on, “for he has not done what
he wanted to do. He went to see Jojasta, the medicine man. He thought
the man could tell him about his father and mother. But Jojasta was
killed before he could tell Bomba what Bomba wanted to know. He told
Bomba something, but not enough.”
The lad was speaking more to relieve his own sore heart than anything
else, but Doto seemed to understand, and put his hairy paw consolingly
on the boy’s arm.
“And now before many moons Bomba must go away again,” the lad resumed,
“for Jojasta told Bomba that he must go to Sobrinini of the Pilati
tribe, beyond the Giant Cataract, and that she could tell him about his
father and mother. It is a long way off, and there are many dangers in
the way. Bomba may never come back, may never see Doto again.”
The monkey uttered a wail and snuggled closer to Bomba as though
in fear of immediate parting. The boy patted the animal’s head
affectionately and roused himself from his musings.
“Bomba must go fast,” he said. “He is on his way home to Casson. He has
been away a long time, and he does not know whether Casson is alive or
dead. So Bomba must hurry.”
As the lad started on in haste, Doto broke out into excited chatterings
and clung to Bomba’s arm as though to hold him back.
Bomba knew at once that the animal was trying to warn him of
threatening danger, and he stopped short in his tracks.
“What is it, Doto?” he asked.
There was another outbreak of sounds that would have been meaningless
to anyone else, but which Bomba had no trouble in interpreting
correctly.
His face grew grave as he listened.
“I know,” he said. “The headhunters, the men with black hearts, are in
the jungle. I have seen their signs this morning. I thought that I had
got past them. But Doto, from the tops of the trees, can see farther
than I can. Where are these men with the bloody hands?”
The monkey pointed in front of them in the very direction Bomba was
taking.
The boy hushed the monkey’s chattering and stood silent as a statue,
listening.
From his long experience in the jungle he had become preternaturally
sharp of hearing. He knew all the sounds of the jungle and could
interpret them accurately.
But strain his ears as he might, he could detect nothing out of the
ordinary. There was the usual hum of insects, the occasional howl of a
monkey or shriek of a parrot. But there was nothing to indicate that,
besides himself, there was any human being in that part of the jungle.
He glanced at Doto with a look of inquiry, as though to ask if the
animal might not be mistaken. But Doto held to his arm with such a
frenzied clutch that Bomba decided to trust in the creature’s instinct
or knowledge--or both.
There was no help for it. In spite of his eagerness to reach Casson,
about whose condition he was in a ferment of anxiety, he must make
a long circuit to avoid the region in which Doto had indicated that
danger lay.
So he changed his course, left the faint trail that he had been
following, and swung out in a sweeping semicircle, with every nerve at
tension and every sense on the alert. With him went his friend, Doto.
On the route he was now pursuing there was no trail, and Bomba had to
hack a way through the underbrush. This involved exhausting work and
made his progress slow. But most of all he dreaded it for fear that the
noise he necessarily made should attract the attention of lurking foes.
At times, when the brush was very thick, Doto would climb to the
lowest branch of a tree and swing from one bough to the other of the
interlacing trees, and Bomba, who was almost as agile as the monkey
himself, followed his companion’s example.
Soon, however, the jungle thinned a little, and they traversed the
forest with redoubled speed in order to make up for lost time.
An hour had passed when Doto suddenly grasped the lad’s arm and pulled
him to the ground. At the same moment, an arrow whizzed over Bomba’s
head. A second later another arrow followed and buried itself in a
tree, where it hung quivering.
Bomba’s enemies were upon him!