RUSPAK GLOATS
From a great bluff, hundreds of feet in height, a huge torrent of water
poured down into a gorge beneath and rose again in an ocean of spray.
The sound was deafening. The mass of waters gleamed with all the colors
of the rainbow. It was almost beyond the imagination of a dreamer.
It made Bomba catch his breath and stand entranced. For a few minutes
he forgot that he was a prisoner, forgot the horrors that might await
him. His soul drank in the beauty of this mighty cataract and its
splendor. He had heard of its wonders, but had never dreamed it could
be like this.
But there was little time to dwell on its grandeur and sublimity. The
harsh voices of their guards drove the prisoners on. To the besotted
minds of their captors the cataract was nothing, except that it
signified that they were once more at home and now could revel in the
torture of their victims.
The main village lay near the foot of the fall, and from this now came
pouring out the women and children and old men of the tribe.
There were shouts of delight as they saw the number of prisoners that
their warriors had brought with them. They gathered about the captives,
taunting and jeering at them and striking them with sticks until the
guards intervened, not out of pity, but in order that the captives
might be kept in good condition for the horrid festival that Nascanora
was planning.
The prisoners passed through the streets of the village and their
hearts sank, for they saw the human heads, shriveled and blackened
by the sun, that were fastened on poles on the tops of the wigwams.
They had evidently been there a long time. Now a new collection was in
prospect.
In the center of the village was a rough stockade. Into this the
prisoners were corralled and left under the supervision of guards,
while the others of the band dispersed to their homes.
The captives sank down under a pall of horror. This, then, was the end
of the trail. A day or two more, while their captors were preparing for
the great festival of blood, and then torture and death.
The only calm and collected person in the whole enclosure was Bomba.
Not that he was dwelling in a fool’s paradise. He did not disguise from
himself the awfulness of the situation. But he faced it unflinchingly.
His courage had never been at a higher pitch. His mind had never worked
more clearly. He could die, and die bravely, if need be. But he meant
to live.
He was making things as comfortable as he could for Casson and little
Pirah when he heard his name spoken. He looked up quickly and saw
before him Ruspak, the medicine man.
It was Ruspak that Bomba had once captured in the jungle and compelled
to accompany him to the cabin where Casson lay at the point of death.
Against his will, Ruspak had been forced to minister to the sick man,
whom his native medicines finally brought back from the grave. When
this had been done, Bomba had dismissed the medicine man with gifts and
they had parted with professions of friendship.
But how insincere those professions had been on the part of Ruspak and
how deeply he had resented the affront to his dignity as a medicine man
was evident now by the malignity in his eyes and the gloating smile on
his lips.
“So Bomba, the mighty Bomba, is a prisoner in the hands of Nascanora!”
he jeered. “He finds now what happens to one who insults the messenger
of the gods.”
Bomba looked at him quietly, but made no answer.
“Where now is the white man’s magic?” Ruspak sneered, as he looked
mockingly at Casson. “Where is the puma that kept guard before the
door?”
Still Bomba kept quiet, and looked at his tormentor with a contempt
that stung Ruspak to the quick.
“So Bomba has lost his tongue,” snapped the medicine man. “But
Nascanora will find that tongue. He will pull it out with redhot
pincers. Then he will cool Bomba’s mouth with water. You came to the
Giant Cataract. You see plenty water. Bomba shall have water. We will
fill his body with it till he bursts.”
Still Bomba disdained to answer.
“Bomba is strong,” mocked Ruspak. “Very strong. That is good. He can
stand torture for a long time before he dies. His eyes can be plucked
out, and still he will live. He can be burned with torches in a hundred
places and still he will live. His fingers can be cut off one by one,
and still he will live. Death will seem very sweet to Bomba. He will
pray for it, but it will be a long time before it comes. Nascanora will
see to that.”
But all his recital of the horrid tortures that were preparing for
Bomba failed to elicit a single word from the contemptuous captive, and
Ruspak at last left him and went away, mumbling to himself and licking
his lips in anticipation.
Bomba turned to Casson and Hondura, who were seated near by. He hoped
that they had not heard all that Ruspak had said. But the tears in the
faded eyes of Casson showed that he had heard all too clearly and that
his heart was wrung with anguish.
“Do not mind him,” the lad soothed the old man, as he patted him on
the shoulder. “He speaks big words, but they are like the wind in the
trees. If my hands had not been bound, it would have been a bad thing
for Ruspak.”
“He has a black heart and a tongue that is as bitter as the aloe
plant,” said Hondura.
Bomba glanced around to see that none of the sentries were observing
him.
“Hondura,” he said, “slip your hand under the puma skin that covers my
chest, reach up near my neck and tell me what you find.”
Hondura did so, and drew back his hand quickly as it touched something
hard and sharp.
“It is your machete,” he whispered.
“Yes,” replied Bomba in the same low tone. “I hung it there in a noose
when I heard the headhunters were coming. After they had bound my
hands, they were in such a hurry to get away from the witch, Sobrinini,
that they did not search me. They thought of it afterward, but when
they looked for it in my belt it was gone, and they thought I had lost
it or left it in Sobrinini’s house. But it is here, and it will be a
good friend to Bomba.”
Hondura’s eyes lighted up as he grunted his satisfaction.
“It may yet find the heart of Nascanora,” he said.
“Perhaps,” assented Bomba. “But first the hands of Bomba must be free.
When it is dark, Hondura will take the knife and cut the bonds of
Bomba, not all the way, or the guards may notice, but so near through
that Bomba can burst them when he wills.”
“Hondura will do so,” promised the Araos chief.
The tropic night soon fell and the darkness was made more intense than
usual by the absence of moon or stars. A great storm was gathering.
Claps of thunder deafened their ears and vivid lightning flashes shot
across the sky.
Before long the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain came down
in a deluge. It was a veritable cloudburst.
There was a shedlike structure in the stockade, used for storage of
fodder for the cattle, and into this the prisoners huddled, finding
some shelter from the fury of the elements.
For hours the torrential rain persisted. All that time Bomba’s brain
was at work thinking out plans of escape, rejecting one, seizing on
another, and weighing the chances of all. The case was desperate, but
his spirit was indomitable.
Presently he noted a change in the sound of the cataract. The rains had
swelled it tremendously, and its roar had increased. But it was not
this that the jungle lad especially noted. It was a series of sharp
reports, of splintering crashes, of jars that shook the earth, that
caused him to listen in wonder.
Then he heard a loud screaming as of men and women in panic, a rushing
of many feet and hoarse shouts that sent the guards scurrying from
their posts in terror.
“The rocks of the falls are breaking! The cataract is coming down on
the village! Run! Run! Run!”