THE JAWS OF DEATH
At sight of the cayman, Bomba, for one awful instant, felt as though
he were paralyzed. Strength seemed suddenly to have left his arms and
legs.
But only for a moment. The next instant the instinct of
self-preservation asserted itself, and he shot forward like an arrow.
He knew he could not reach the shore before the dreadful thing would
be upon him. But he would struggle till the last. As a final resource
he had his knife.
But what would that knife avail against murderous jaws armed with a
score of knives? One nip from those jaws could sever his leg from his
body, or, if they caught him at the waist, could bite him in half.
His arms and legs were working like piston-rods. He was fairly
leaping through the water. But behind him was coming a fearsome thing
that could swim still faster.
Still Bomba sped on, his eyes fixed on the land steadily drawing
nearer, even though the lad had the conviction that his feet would
never press that land again.
The muscles in his strong arms were strained until it seemed as
though they would burst. He breathed with difficulty. His head,
surcharged with blood, felt as though it were encircled by an iron
band that was eating its way into it.
One hurried glance over his shoulder showed him that the cayman was
gaining. The distance between them had sensibly diminished.
As a whole world of thoughts is said to pass through the brain of a
drowning man, so Bomba reviewed in those terrible moments the things
that had come into his life.
One thought tore a sob from his aching throat. It was of Casson,
poor, gentle, bewildered Casson, left alone to face the perils of
the jungle, the jaguar, the sucurujus, the dreaded boa constrictor,
and those human foes, perhaps more terrible still, bent on his
destruction.
There was another grief, a longing bitterly poignant though but
vaguely understood, that stirred his soul to the depths with agony.
The white men! He would never know now about that mysterious
world from which they had come, to which at this moment they were
returning. He would not know. He would not know!
The words beat themselves over and over in his brain, while his
straining muscles labored to snatch a few more moments from eternity.
He cast one more look behind him. The hideous brute was nearer now,
the fangs in its frightful jaws gleaming as the cayman clove the
water.
Now it was close upon him! Bomba’s legs were instinctively drawn up
to his body to escape the slash of those dreadful jaws. His hand
reached for his knife.
What was that his dimming eyes saw directly ahead of him? Bomba’s
heart leaped with renewed hope as he saw that the flat object
floating almost within his reach was a rude raft—four hollow logs
strapped together with bush cord. The work of caboclos, probably, who
had later discarded it for a more convenient mode of river travel—the
regatao or river canoe.
Could he reach it? The splashing of the alligator was close behind
him. The brute was preparing for its spring. Every moment Bomba
expected to feel the clamp of those iron jaws, to be dragged beneath
the swirling surface to the slime and ooze of the river bed, to be
feasted on at leisure.
The boy summoned all his expiring strength in one last effort. A
mighty spurt carried him a few feet ahead. He must get hold of that
raft. It spelled safety, deliverance from a horrible fate. Extinction
threatened him, and like any other creature of the wild he fought
madly for his life.
Another moment and those hungry jaws would fasten on him, tear his
straining soul from his mangled body.
Now the raft was only an inch from his frantic fingers—half an inch!
He touched it! He grasped it, lifted himself, slipped back, made one
last effort, pulled himself out and sprawled at full length upon the
raft!
He was not a second too soon. Even as he fell prone, two vicious jaws
snapped savagely. The cayman lurched against the raft, tipping it to
such an angle that Bomba was almost thrown into the water.
But the boy held on desperately, and the raft righted itself.
Again the brute returned to the attack. This time it flung its body
half upon the raft and its jaws snapped within an inch of the lad’s
legs.
There was a heavy paddle lying on the raft. Bomba snatched it up and
brought it down with all his force on the cayman’s snout.
The brute winced, but still continued its efforts to climb up on the
frail structure. Then Bomba jammed the stick through the gaping jaws
deep into the brute’s throat.
There was a grunt of pain and rage, and the cayman fell back into
the water that was speedily dyed with the blood that came from the
wound. There was no more fight left in the creature. It swam around
for a moment, glaring with its malignant eyes at the human banquet it
had counted on, and then sank slowly from sight.
Bomba had won. But it had been a terrific experience. He sat down on
the raft, too utterly worn out for the moment to move a finger.
But if his body was exhausted, his mind was still active. The same
subjects that had tormented him a few minutes ago in his dreadful
extremity now appeared in a roseate glow.
The white men! He would see them again. Or if not Gillis and Dorn,
others of their kind. His kind, too, he thought with a thrill of
exultation.
As he lay there, his brown body glistening with river water might
have belonged to any native Amazonian. His sturdy body and rippling
muscles, too, might have been those of a caboclo, a native waterman.
But not his eyes. The dreaming look that now clouded their bright
watchfulness was a heritage of white men—the striving of a soul for
ascendency over mere physical things, the yearning for something
higher than an animal existence.
And he was white! He knew it! And those men, those beings from
another world, had acknowledged that he was white. They knew. They
must know everything. And he had not had with them the alien feeling
that had always been his when he had come in contact with the
Indians. He had felt at home with these white men. He liked them.
They had liked him.
But now they were gone. When would he see them again?
They had been his friends. They had given him presents. He touched
the gifts with reverent fingers. But the men had gone. Where? To some
mysterious place utterly beyond his comprehension, where white men
talked and laughed a great deal and slapped each other on the back.
It must be a friendly country, thought Bomba wistfully, as he looked
about on the stream and jungle where so few things were friendly. He,
too, would like to talk and laugh a great deal and slap people—white
people—on the back.
He had never talked much. Cody Casson was reticent. He had never
laughed much. Casson was somber.
He would like to bring about a change in the quiet little hut, to
talk and laugh with Casson. But if he could not have done that
before, how could he do it now? Casson was no longer wise. He had
forgotten all that could be talked about. He was like a little child
again, to be watched over and guarded from evil.
The thought of Casson put an end to his musings. Once more he was
Bomba, the jungle-trained and bred, with all the wily cunning of the
jungle in his eyes. No longer were those eyes dreaming, but bright
and watchful as had been those of old Geluk, the puma, whose skin
Bomba now wore as covering.
With the paddle which had done him such good service in warding off
the attack of the alligator he rapidly propelled the rude raft toward
the jutting point where he intended to make his landing.
He soon touched and leaped upon the shore. Before him stretched a
ygapo, a huge swamp many miles in width. This must be crossed before
he could reach the hut. The only alternative was a roundabout route.
But the feeling that Casson might at any minute be in danger urged
the boy to take the shorter cut.
Nevertheless, he hated the swamp. Vaguely he imagined it peopled with
evil spirits. The tall crabwood trees standing in clusters threw deep
shadows over the blackish-brown water, giving it an indescribably
dreary and sinister appearance. Here and there, out of the slimy ooze
sprang huge tree ferns. No shrieking of parrots or howling of monkeys
in this cheerless spot. Nothing but dead leaves and treacherous mud,
without the stir of a leaf or the twitter of a bird to break the
brooding silence. It might have been a lost fragment flung off from a
vanished world.
Bomba made his way rapidly through the ygapo, heavily oppressed by
the premonition that danger lurked about the hut of Casson. In one
hand he firmly grasped his faithful machete, while in the other he
held the revolver, the cherished gift of the white man.
His eyes scanned the coverts for the first sign of danger. There was
little peril from wild beasts, who preferred the dry woodland, but he
knew that reptiles might start from the slime or drop down upon him
from the trees.
He found no use, however, for either weapon while traversing the
swamp. It was not until he was nearly across the ygapo that an acrid
scent assailed his nostrils.
Fire!
He was not alarmed at first. It was probably only Casson’s campfire
built outside the hut.
But in a moment he knew that the volume of smoke wafted to him by a
vagrant breeze could come from no ordinary bonfire, and his steps
quickened.
He reached the farther end of the ygapo. He drew himself up to the
higher level, and with relief felt solid ground beneath his feet once
more.
Bomba plunged onward, the increasing density of the smoke lending
wings to his feet. No thought of Gillis and Dorn in the jungle lad’s
mind now! Only room there for thought of Cody Casson! Would he reach
the hut and the old man in time?
It took Bomba only a short time to reach the trees that fringed the
clearing he and Casson had made.
A glance as he burst into the open told him that his worst fears were
realized.
The hut was in flames!