CARRIED INTO CAPTIVITY
For a moment Bomba stood stupefied with dread. Then he ran out into the
open.
He beat the bushes about the hut. He dashed down to the edge of the
ygapo, his quick eye scanning the expanse for some sign of the passing
of Casson and Pipina.
Nothing anywhere. No footprints, no trampling of the bushes, no clue to
guide him in a search for the missing ones.
To all appearances no one had trodden that deserted spot since Bomba
had returned from his journey to the Moving Mountain.
Yet Casson was gone. Pipina was gone.
Bomba retraced his steps to the hut, his mind in a ferment of
bewilderment and grief.
Indians! Only Indians could traverse the jungle with the silence and
stealth of ghosts, leaving no trace behind.
“Nascanora!” The word hissed between the boy’s clenched teeth. “This is
your work! If you have killed Casson, Bomba will not rest until he has
found your heart with an arrow, a bullet, or a knife!”
The boy reëntered the empty hut with a sharp pain stabbing at his
heart. He would search the cabin more minutely now for some sign, some
clue, to the whereabouts of the absent ones. And if he could not find
it there, he would call into play all his skill in woodcraft to find
and follow their trail. For trail there must be somewhere. They could
not have vanished into thin air.
Inch by inch, he scrutinized the walls, the floor, even every crevice
of the crude and meagre furniture, thinking he might find some message
from Casson. It was almost a forlorn hope, but it was all that he had
at the moment.
He had nearly abandoned even this hope, however, when he discovered
a faint scrawl on the wall in the darkest corner of the hut. He bent
closer, and his brows drew together in a scowl as he tried to decipher
the writing.
Then suddenly a hoarse cry of rage escaped him. His eyes blazed in the
shadowy hut like those of an angry puma.
For this was what he read:
“_Nascanora is taking away Casson, Pipina, Hondura to camp near Giant
Cataract. Come. Help._”
So the headhunters had achieved their end at last! They had captured
the helpless old man whom their superstition had led them to regard
as a Man of Evil, a magician whose spells had brought blight on their
crops and sickness to their people. Poor old Casson, whose one desire
was to help rather than hurt!
They would torture him. They would make him a sacrifice to their gods.
And when flesh and blood could no longer stand their torments, they
would kill him and place his head on the wigwam of their chief.
Bomba’s rage was terrific, and it would have fared ill with the savage
chief if at that moment he had come within reach of the boy’s knife.
The boy read the scrawl again. So they had taken Hondura too, the
friendly chief of the Araos tribe, the father of the pretty little
girl, Pirah, who had once saved Bomba’s life!
Why had Nascanora made Hondura captive with Casson and the squaw? Was
it because Hondura and his tribe had been on friendly terms with Bomba
and the old naturalist? Or did Nascanora think that the Araos tribe
was becoming too powerful, and had he hoped by depriving them of their
chief to render his people helpless and throw confusion and panic into
their hearts?
But that problem could be left till later for solution. The pressing
thing was to plan for the rescue of the captives before they were so
far away that their recovery would be impossible.
When his first fury had exhausted itself, Bomba left the writing on the
wall and sat down on the threshold of the hut, the better to think out
a course of action.
“Near the Giant Cataract” said that rude scrawl penciled by poor
Casson, when the attention of his captors was momentarily diverted.
Bomba had no clear idea as to how far away that was or what direction
would have to be followed to reach it. But from what he had gathered
from the natives from time to time, the place was at a great distance,
and he knew that a long and arduous journey lay before him.
That is, if he had to go that far in order to catch up with the raiding
party. There was nothing in the hut on which he could base any judgment
as to the time the capture had taken place.
It might have occurred the very day that he had left on his hunting
trip. In that case, they would have had a three days’ start of him.
Or again it might have happened yesterday. In that event, his task of
overtaking them would be that much easier.
No matter how much they wanted to hurry, no large party could proceed
very fast, encumbered as they were with prisoners and probably laden
with spoils. Bomba could cover as much ground in one day as they could
in two or possibly in three. So he had little doubt of his ability to
overtake them before they could get very far.
What he would do if he should come up with them, he did not pause
to consider. No plan formed now would be of any service. He must be
guided by circumstances as they developed. But he had enough confidence
in his own quick wit to believe that he would be able to shape such
circumstances to meet his ends.
But time pressed, and he could spend no more time in reflection. He
rose to his feet and secured some cured meat from Pipina’s stores to
feed him on the way. He would have no time to spend in hunting food
when there were human enemies requiring his attention.
He tested his bow, put a new string on it, and replenished his store of
arrows. His revolver and machete were already at his belt. He took one
more look about the cabin to make sure he had overlooked nothing and
plunged into the jungle.
Like a hound when trying to pick up a trail, he described a long
circle, scanning the ground narrowly for every sign that might indicate
the direction in which the party had gone.
For a long time his search was unsuccessful. At last his eyes
brightened, for they rested on a little strip of cloth fluttering on a
thorn bush. He examined it carefully and recognized it as a strip torn
from a loose dress such as the Indian women wear. Probably it was torn
from Pipina’s garment.
This was something, but not enough. He must find a second strip, if
possible, and the line formed by the two would give him the direction
in which the party were traveling.
Before long his eager search was rewarded. Now he could shape his
course, and he hurried forward with redoubled speed.
The bits of cloth also told the jungle boy another story. The fact that
they had been torn off at all showed that the savages had been hurrying
their captives along at great speed, and so roughly that they took no
care to avoid the thorn bushes that tore the clothes and probably the
skin.
Bomba’s heart burned within him as he pictured poor, weak Casson
driven along, perhaps flogged to make him hasten. How long could he
endure such treatment in his feeble condition? Perhaps even now he had
succumbed to the hardships of the journey! Bomba gritted his teeth and
his eyes flamed with fury.
He had not gone far when his jungle instinct warned him of danger in
the immediate vicinity. Motions as vague as shadows, faint rustlings
that could not have been detected by an untrained ear, told him that
something or someone was trailing him, keeping step with him, moving
as swiftly and silently as he. From being the hunter, he had become the
hunted.
When Bomba paused the slight rustlings stopped. When he moved on they
were resumed.
Still he continued on his way. Whether his pursuer were beast or human
he could not tell. But the jungle lad knew that, whether beast or
human, the surest way to provoke attack was to betray a knowledge of
his danger.
To keep on would be at least to delay attack and perhaps derange the
plans of his pursuer. But when the attack at last came--if it should
come--he would be ready.
Suddenly he became conscious that he was encircled. The faint sound,
which had been behind him, was echoed now on the right and the left and
in the front. His enemies, whoever they were, were closing in upon him.
There was nothing that his eyes could tell him. Not a leaf stirred
nor was there any movement in the brush. There was only that ghostly
rustling that to Bomba’s sensitive ears was as plainly perceptible as
the rumbling of distant thunder.
Then something shaped itself, vague and dim behind a thicket. Like a
beast at bay, Bomba crouched, pulled his bow from his shoulder and
plucked an arrow from his pouch.
Before he could fit the arrow to the string a hideous chorus of shouts
rent the air, and like magic the jungle was filled with men, men with
the ferocious faces of demons, who rushed upon him, shouting and
brandishing their sharp, murderous knives above their heads.
Bomba had no time to turn and flee. He dropped his bow, whipped out
his machete and backed toward a tree, only to feel himself seized from
behind and borne helpless to the ground.
A score of natives bent above him, their faces menacing, their knives
pointed at his throat.
“Hondura?” grunted one of them. “Where is he?”
A light dawned upon Bomba. These were braves of the Araos tribe seeking
their leader. They blamed him, Bomba, for the disappearance of their
chief--Bomba, who at that very moment was on his way to rescue that
chief from captivity.
“Let me up and I will tell you,” he said, refusing to quail before the
fierce eyes directed upon him.
They hesitated, evidently suspicious of some trick. But finally the
leader, a strapping native named Lodo, whom Bomba remembered having
seen on his recent visit to their village, ordered that a close ring be
formed about the lad. Then he ordered him to stand up.
Bomba did so, and Lodo advanced toward him, knife in hand, his gaze
lowering.
“Where is Hondura, our chief?” he demanded. “You hide him.”
“The bad chief, Nascanora, take good chief, Hondura, prisoner,” Bomba
replied, his brown eyes holding the little, shifting ones of Lodo with
great earnestness. “He take, too, my friend Casson and Pipina, the
squaw. Come with me to the hut, and I will show you the writing on the
wall.”
It was plain that the Indians considered this a subterfuge or a trap,
and there was considerable parleying before Lodo finally announced that
they would take him to the hut.
“But you fool us, Bomba,” threatened Lodo with a suggestive twist of
his knife, “and I cut out your heart--so!”