BEATEN OFF
Through the air whizzed a gleaming, long, razor-edged knife that
buried itself in the jaguar’s throat!
The stricken jaguar landed on the spot where but a moment before,
Gillis and Dorn had stood, and sprawled out in a heap. It made
one or two frantic digs at its throat in the attempt to dislodge
the machete. But it had gone deep and the beast’s efforts were
unavailing. A few convulsive struggles, and it was dead.
Amazed at this sudden end of their foe, the men approached it
cautiously and prodded it with the butts of their guns. But there was
no movement. The knife had done its work effectively.
Dorn’s eyes caught sight of the handle of the weapon, and he stooped
down and drew it out, though he had to tug hard to get it. He held it
up before his astonished companion.
“How did this get there?” asked Gillis.
“It is mine,” said Bomba, coming up and reaching out his hand to
reclaim it.
“Yours?” demanded Dorn. “Why, you weren’t near enough to stab the
beast!”
“I threw it,” said Bomba, wiping the knife on the grass and slipping
it back into his belt.
“G—great Scott!” stuttered Dorn. “He—he threw it!”
“And threw it as straight as he shot the arrow!” ejaculated Gillis.
“And with so much force that you had all that you could do to draw it
out. Boy, you’re a wonder! You saved the life of one or both of us!”
“I was glad to help you,” said Bomba, showing all his white teeth in
a happy smile. “But now we must put the jaguars near the edge of the
woods where the others will see them.”
“What’s the idea?” queried Gillis. “So that they can’t feast on them
and not be so hungry after us?”
“No,” said Bomba. “The others will not eat them. They fight and kill
each other when they are angry, but they do not eat one another. But
when the live ones see these dead ones, they will know that this
place is not good for jaguars, and they will go away.”
“Sounds reasonable,” said Gillis. “But whether the plan works or
not, what this boy says goes. I’m frank to confess that he’s got me
buffaloed. If he hadn’t been here to-night, you and I would have been
dead men, Dorn.”
“He’s saved the camp all right,” assented Dorn, as he directed some
of the natives to drag the heavy bodies to the places that Bomba
indicated.
That the sight of their dead kindred daunted whatever other jaguars
might have intended to make an onslaught on the camp, seemed clear as
time went on. The jungle was vocal, as it always is at night, with
the strident notes of insects, the howling of monkeys, and now and
then the distant bellow of an anaconda.
But the jaguars seemed to have taken themselves off. Bomba’s keen
ears could no longer detect the subdued growling and purring of the
four-footed raiders, the soft thud of their padding feet. Nor were
his nostrils conscious of their presence.
After a full hour had passed, he relaxed his tense attitude,
stretched, and yawned.
“They have gone,” he announced.
“Are you sure?” asked Gillis, eagerly.
“They have gone,” repeated Bomba. “And they will tell the others.
They will not come back. I will sleep.”
“Go to it, my boy,” said Dorn. “You’ve earned it, if ever anyone did.
I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”
“Our name would have been Dennis,” declared Gillis.
“I thought your name was Gillis,” said Bomba wonderingly.
“It is,” was the laughing reply. “I keep forgetting that you don’t
know our slang. I mean our name would have been mud—there I go again.
What I mean to say is that we would have been killed if you had not
been here.”
Bomba made up his mind that he would remember these new words so
that he could talk like the white men. He already had a precious
collection, “goat,” “mud,” “Dennis,” “shindig.” And there had been
others, too, that he would try to recall. He would tell them to
Casson and show him how much he had learned. But just now he was very
sleepy.
“I’ll get you some blankets to lie on,” said Gillis.
“No,” said Bomba, “I will sleep this way.”
He threw himself down on the ground near the fire, and in a moment
was fast asleep.
But there was no sleep just then for Gillis or Dorn. They were too
wrought up by the dreadful experiences through which they had gone to
close their eyes. So they sat with their rifles on their knees until
the first faint tinge of dawn showed in the east. Then they knew that
the danger was past, for that night at least, and after summoning a
couple of natives and placing them on watch, they threw themselves
wearily on their blankets in a sleep of utter exhaustion.
Bomba was the first to awake, and for a moment found it hard to
realize where he was. He sat up, looked around, and caught sight of
the bodies of the jaguars. Then all the events of the stirring night
came back to him.
He had borne himself well in circumstances that might have made grown
men quail. He had met death face to face, and it had been a matter
of touch and go whether he would escape unscathed. But the fortune
that favors the brave had been with him, and he had not a scratch. He
had trapped the cooanaradi. He had slain one jaguar and foiled the
others. It was natural that he should be filled with a feeling of
exultation.
But far above the satisfaction at his own safety was that which came
from the thought that he had saved the white men. Without him, they
would surely have been doomed! He had established his right to be
regarded as a brother. He had vindicated his white skin.
In twenty-four hours he had gone far. A new world had opened before
him. He had crossed a chasm that separated him from his own race.
He had realized some of the dreams, answered some of the questions,
solved some of the mysteries that for a long time past had been
tormenting him.
But he realized that he still had far to go. How much these white men
knew! In what a different world they moved! How far superior they
seemed to him! How ignorant he was, compared to them!
But he would learn. He would ask Casson. Casson must know all the
things the other white men knew. And then his heart sank, as he
realized that Casson seemed to have forgotten all or almost all that
he had ever known. There was little help to be expected from the man
with whom Bomba lived.
He was engrossed in these meditations when Gillis opened his eyes.
They fell on Bomba, and recollection came into them.
“How does our hero feel this morning?” asked Gillis, with a genial
smile.
“What is a hero?” asked Bomba, with his usual directness.
“Why, you fill the bill as well as anyone I ever saw,” returned
Gillis. “A hero is a man or boy who isn’t afraid.”
“But I was afraid last night,” said Bomba.
“I guess we all were,” remarked Gillis. “Well then, a hero is one
who, even if he is afraid, doesn’t let fear get the best of him, but
fights on and makes up his mind to keep on fighting till he dies. And
that’s what you’d have done last night if it had come to that. But
it’s getting pretty late, and we’ll have to get a move on.”
He shook Dorn awake, gave some orders to the natives, and soon the
camp was alive with preparations for breakfast.
This time Bomba took his knife and fork at the outset, and was
gratified to note that he could already handle them much better than
he had on the night before.
“Well, now, my boy,” said Gillis, after they had enjoyed a hearty
meal, “we’ll have to be packing and getting on our way. As we told
you last night, we’d like nothing better than to have you go along
with us. Still think you can’t, eh?”
“I should like to go,” replied Bomba, and the look in his eyes was
much more eloquent than words. “But Casson is old and sick. He has
been good to me. I have to get his food for him. He would die if I
should go.”
“That settles it then, of course,” said Gillis regretfully. “But
don’t you think, my boy, that we’re going to forget you. We owe you
too much for that. Either we’ll come back, or we’ll send someone
else to get you and Casson out of this jungle and bring you where
you belong. In the meantime, we want to do something to show you how
grateful we are. You saved our lives, and we want to do something for
you.”
“You do not have to give me anything,” said Bomba, simply. “I was
glad to help you.”
“All the same, you’ll have to take something,” put in Dorn. “The
question is, what shall it be? The boy can get all the food he wants,
and I don’t suppose he has any use for money.”
“What is money?” asked Bomba.
The men laughed.
“About the most important thing in the world outside this jungle,”
said Gillis. “This is money,” and he took a gold piece from his pouch
and spun it on the rude board that served as a table.
“It is pretty,” said Bomba.
“A good many people think so,” remarked Gillis, dryly. “Some would
sell their soul for it.”
“What is a soul?” asked Bomba.
“You’re getting in deep, Gillis,” laughed Dorn.
“I sure am with this animated interrogation mark,” returned his
comrade. “The soul is the best part of us, the part that makes men
good and wise and brave, that makes them different from the animals.”
“Have I got a soul then?” asked Bomba.
“You sure have,” replied Gillis. “And one of the best, if you ask me.
But we’re getting off the subject. We want to give you something that
you would like to have. I wonder what it would be.”
His eyes roved about and caught sight of a harmonica that lay in one
of the packs they had brought along for trading with the natives.
“How would you like this?” he asked of Bomba, as he picked it up and
handed it to him.
Bomba examined it curiously. He liked its smoothness and its glitter.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Let me show you,” said Gillis, as he took it from him, put it to his
mouth, and played a few bars of a popular air.
Bomba was amazed and delighted.
“It is like a bird!” he exclaimed. “It sings!”
“Try it yourself,” said Gillis, handing it over. “Blow your breath
into it and draw your breath back.”
Bomba did so, and although the notes he brought from it were
meaningless and discordant, they thrilled him with rapture. He could
make music like the white men.
“Keep it,” said Gillis, highly pleased at the lad’s delight. “It’s
yours.”
“It is good to give me this,” said Bomba gratefully, as he fondled
his treasure. It was the first present he had ever had in his life.
“We’d feel cheap enough if we let it go at that,” said Dorn. “How
about giving the boy a revolver? You saw how curious he was about
firearms.”
“Right enough,” assented Gillis, as he went into the tent and
returned with a shining new five-chambered revolver. “Here, Bomba,
you liked the big iron stick. This is a little iron stick, but it
does very much the same thing as the big one.”
“Oh, are you going to give me that?” exclaimed Bomba, scarcely able
to believe his eyes.
“Sure thing,” said Gillis. “Here, let me show you how it works.”
He broke the revolver, and Bomba gave a gasp of dismay.
“You broke it!” he exclaimed in grief.
“That’s all right,” replied Gillis. “I have to do that to load it.
See, this is the way it is done.”
He put cartridges in the five chambers, while Bomba watched him
breathlessly. Then he snapped the stock back and looked around for a
mark.
One of the dead jaguars caught his eye, and he emptied the revolver
into the carcass, firing so rapidly that it seemed almost one
continuous explosion.
“Now go take a look at the jaguar,” said Gillis. “You’ll find five
holes that weren’t in it before.”
Bomba confirmed this with his eyes. It still seemed to him like
magic, and there was awe mingled with delight in his ownership of the
weapon.
“Let me put five more holes in the jaguar,” he begged.
Gillis loaded it for him and gave him directions how to hold, aim,
and fire the weapon, though he and Dorn took care to take their stand
behind him.
In the tyro’s hands only one more perforation marked the jaguar’s
hide, the rest missing the mark through Bomba’s unfamiliarity with
the weapon and his failure to allow for its kick.
“All right for a beginner,” commented Gillis. “With your natural
keenness of eye you’ll be a crack shot as soon as you get used to the
gun and have a little more practice. I only wish we had more time to
teach you. But Casson will give you lessons, and in a little while
you can shoot as straight with this as you can with your bow.”
Many boxes of cartridges accompanied the gift, and Bomba tucked them
away carefully in his pouch, feeling as rich as Croesus. It had
certainly been a lucky day for him when he had come across the white
men!
But his delight in his treasure was dimmed when, a little while
later, all preparations were completed and the party got ready to
move.
The rubber hunters themselves, steeled adventurers as they were, were
deeply stirred as they shook hands with Bomba and bade him good-bye.
They had become strongly attached to this lad, who had come upon
them so strangely, and to whom, no doubt, they owed their lives.
There was tragic pathos in his loneliness in these vast wilds with
only a half-demented old man to bear him company.
“You’ll hear from us again, remember that,” promised Gillis. “We’re
not going to let this thing drop. We will come back or send back for
you.”
“I hope so,” said Bomba. “If you do not come, my name will be mud.”
The men could not help smiling, and Bomba was proud. He was showing
them that he could talk like the white men.
They waved a final farewell and took up their journey through the
jungle. Bomba watched them until the underbrush hid them from view.
The world suddenly became very empty. His eyes were filled with tears.
He stood there for a long time, trying to still the ache in his
heart. Then he turned his face toward the south. He must get back to
Casson.
Dear old Casson! Kind old Casson! His heart thrilled with affection.
He, at least, was left to him.
It was not the first time that Bomba had been away over night from
the hut that sheltered him and the old naturalist. He was the
provider of food, and his hunting trips had often carried him far
afield. But he was always uneasy when that occurred and anxious to
get back as soon as possible, for Casson was in no condition to be
left alone any more than was necessary.
Having made sure that the revolver, the harmonica, and the matches
were safely bestowed in his pouch, Bomba started on his homeward
journey.
Refreshed by his night’s sleep and good breakfast, he made good
progress for the first two hours. Then his exertions began to tell
and his pace slackened, though he was still making remarkably good
time, considering that for part of the way he had to hack a path
through the underbrush with his machete.
On his way he passed the place of his encounter with the cooanaradi.
Only the skeleton of the snake remained. And from the cleanness with
which the frame had been stripped, Bomba conjectured that the ants
had been at work.
Some distance further on, he came upon the ashes of a fire. Some of
the embers were still smouldering and scraps of meat lay scattered
about. Some natives out on a hunt had evidently stopped there for a
meal.
This was a common enough occurrence and gave the lad no special
concern. The Indians of the vicinity, though not especially friendly,
were not hostile. They were uneasy at the presence of the whites,
whom they looked upon as intruders, but up to the present they had
been content to leave them alone, and Casson and Bomba on their part
had held aloof from the natives as much as possible.
So Bomba was not alarmed when he caught sight of an Indian a little
to one side but moving along on a forest trail that crossed the one
that he was pursuing. They reached the junction of the trails at
about the same time. The Indian turned and looked at the lad.
Bomba’s heart gave a sudden leap. He saw a symbol painted in ochre
on the Indian’s chest. It was the symbol of the head-hunters, the
ferocious tribe from the Giant Cataract!