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A wild hope that perhaps the brute was asleep and would not perceive his presence was quickly dispelled as the lad caught sight of two fiery eyes fixed upon him. Then the huge mouth opened, displaying the horrible array of teeth that, if they once closed on the lad, would bite him in half as easily as a pair of shears ...
The light from the fire gave him what he needed for his aim, and the arrow entered the eye of the monster and penetrated to the brain. With a fearful bellow of rage and pain, the great brute leaped half out of the water and fell back, only to churn the water into a seething whirlpool. In its wild flounderings the end o...
The impulse was strong on Bomba to shoot another arrow at the reptile and send it to join its companion. But arrows were precious now, and all he had would perhaps be needed for human foes. So he repressed the impulse and hurried along the bank until he had come near the fringe of trees that bordered the clearing in wh...
Summoning all his strength, he darted out into the open. His first few bounds carried him fifty feet. Then he dropped to the ground as a dozen arrows whizzed over his head. It was upon this that Bomba had counted. He had timed his drop for just the instant that would allow the startled savages to aim and let fly. He wa...
He reached the shelter of a tree and whirled behind it. On the side of the clearing he had just left, one of the headhunters, keen after his prey, had come from behind his shelter. Like lightning, Bomba fitted an arrow to his string. There was a twang, a hideous yell, and the savage threw up his hands and fell headlong...
His heart sank within him. The cabin was a mass of flames. It was impossible for life to be sustained in that furnace for a minute. If Casson and Pipina had been trapped there, they were already far beyond human help. They must be just what the hut itself would be in a few minutes more, a heap of smoldering ashes. For ...
Bomba felt that he was trapped. His doom seemed sealed. He felt for the handle of the machete at his belt. He grasped his bow. He would not allow himself to be taken alive. Better instant death than the tortures of Nascanora. And he vowed that he would take more than one of his enemies with him. He bent his bow, took q...
The Indians yelled and leaped forward. Bang! A sharp detonation clashed against their eardrums like a crash of thunder. The force of the explosion shook the earth and flung the natives to the ground. Bomba found himself on his face, half-stunned, bewildered. Mysterious missiles hurtled over his head, exploding in mid-a...
He raised himself cautiously to his knees and saw a sight that brought hope to his heart. The Indians were in full retreat, and as they fled they looked over their shoulders at him fearfully, as though they blamed him for their discomfiture. Bomba well knew the mind of the Indian. The cause of the explosion and the tre...
But before he could release the string one of the flying missiles struck the would-be slayer, hurling him to the ground. This was too much. The savages turned terror-stricken and fled from that scene of mysterious death. By this time Bomba had realized what must have caused the explosion. Their little store of powder, ...
But as he turned back toward the cabin a great wave of desolation flooded his heart. There lay the cabin, now a heap of ashes. Were the ashes of Casson and Pipina also there? Had those faithful ones come there to their death? With a sob Bomba threw himself on the ground and abandoned himself to uncontrolled grief. This...
“They shall pay!” the lad cried, leaping to his feet. “For every drop of Casson’s blood they shall pay! There will yet be wailing in the huts of Nascanora. It is I, Bomba, who swear it!” He paused, head upflung, listening. What was that sound? CHAPTER V
HOW THE INDIANS CAME Bomba strained his ears and again heard the thing that had startled him. It was a faint cry, rising and falling like a wail somewhere in the bushes. “Help!” came the voice, eerie as that of a banshee in the darkness. “Help, Bomba! Help!” Into Bomba’s heart sprang a great joy. This was the voice of ...
He was off like a deer in the direction from which the cry had come. “Bomba hears you,” he called softly. “Bomba is coming.” “Help!” came the feeble voice again. “Pipina is caught and cannot get loose. Come quickly.” Bomba wondered why he did not hear Casson’s voice, if Casson still lived. But he said nothing and hurri...
He came nearer and nearer to the wailing woman until, pushing aside a tangle of vines, he saw her. The moon, following close on the heels of the tropical storm, was now riding high in the heavens and shedding a soft luster over the jungle. By its light, Bomba caught sight of Pipina as she stood holding out helpless han...
The old woman drooped her head and stood there like a bowed statue of grief, but said nothing until Bomba, mad with anxiety, shook her gently by the shoulders. “Do you hear, Pipina? Where is the good white man, Cody Casson, my friend?” Then the old woman raised her hands above her head and gave vent to a wailing, desol...
Bomba’s face darkened and again his heart contracted under the cold hand of anguish. “Tell me, Pipina,” he commanded. “Where has he gone? What has become of him?” “We sit down and I will tell you,” returned the squaw. “Pipina weak, sick--” For answer, Bomba cleared a space and, taking the old woman, placed her as comfo...
He sat down opposite her, his arms folded, his glance full upon her face. “Now, Pipina, tell Bomba all,” he urged. The old woman looked about her and shuddered. She wrapped her skinny arms about her as though they were a garment and had power to ward off the chill of the night. “Headhunters--they gone?” she asked fearf...
“Gone,” said Bomba tersely. “Where is Casson?” “Bomba make them go away all by himself,” continued the squaw admiringly. “Bomba great man some day--” Bomba bent toward her. “Do not talk foolishly, Pipina. Bomba not care about himself. Pipina tell about Casson.”
The old woman gave her wailing cry and rocked herself back and forth drearily. “We have bad time, Casson, Pipina,” she said. “We all alone in hut, wishing Bomba come. Storm come, but not Bomba. Thunder like roar of pumas, many pumas.” “Bomba caught in storm,” explained the lad. “No could come till storm stopped.” “Pipi...
She said this, leaning forward, in a quick, hissing whisper. Now she relaxed against the tree and stared gloomily into the heavy shadows of the jungle. “Casson not too good,” she muttered. “Pipina worry about Casson. Worry hard.” “What was wrong with Casson?” cried Bomba, exasperated beyond measure by the slowness with...
Bomba caught the arm of the old woman in an eager grip. “Go on,” he commended. “What else did Casson say? Tell Bomba.” But Pipina shook her head. “He not say more,” she said. “Only those words he say again and again. Then he stop, listen at door of hut, listen and then walk up and down, up and down.”
“Go on,” cried Bomba. “Then we hear things. We think you come. We happy. We sing. We dance. But no, Bomba not come. It is the headhunters that come to try to kill Casson and Pipina--” Bomba gave a low growl like that of an animal and ground his teeth together. “They come.” The voice of the old woman rose again in eerie...
Bomba groaned as he saw the picture of old Cody Casson, brave to the last, defying death, his only weapon a “fire stick” that would not work. “It happen quick,” went on Pipina with a helpless shake of her head. “One, two, three--like that,” with a snap of her bony fingers. “The headhunters come. They have heads, fresh ...
“Casson no open door,” she resumed. “He know Nascanora. He say things. Make big chief mad. He beat more hard on door. He shout: ‘Casson witch doctor. He put a spell on sick people of our tribe. Nascanora burn Casson and hut of Casson with him.’” A smoldering fire was in Bomba’s eyes that boded no good to the chief of t...
The old woman shrugged her shoulders and there was a touch of pride in her tone as she replied: “Beneath the hut of Pipina there is a hole, and this hole it lead under the ground out into the jungle.” Bomba stared at her. “A hole!” he exclaimed. “A passage! Why you not tell Bomba?”
The squaw smiled inscrutably. “None know but Pipina.” Bomba was listening with the most intense interest and wonder. “Go on,” he cried, as Pipina paused.
“Pipina take up board in floor of hut,” went on the old woman. “Then get down and crawl through hole. Casson come too. Long time to creep through hole. Then come to end. Out into jungle where wet and cool.” “Then Casson got out safely?” cried Bomba. The squaw nodded, and Bomba gratefully took her old wrinkled hand in h...
The old woman threw her hands above her head, rocking herself back and forth. “Ayah, ayah!” she wailed. “Pipina save the life of Casson, but she lose him after. For when Pipina look around Casson is gone!” CHAPTER VI THROUGH THE JUNGLE
A pang like the stab of a knife went through Bomba. “What mean you, Pipina?” he cried. “Speak. Speak fast.” “We stand up from hole,” the squaw explained. “We find us far in the jungle away from the headhunters of Nascanora. Yet Casson and Pipina still afraid.” “You hide?” asked Bomba.
The old woman nodded, looking about her fearfully. “We go far, very far, into the jungle,” she said. “We hide behind big rock. From there we see light from fire. Nascanora he think we are in hut. He think Casson and Pipina burn like tapir meat on the end of spit. But Pipina too smart for him. Pipina she fool the great ...
“Ayah!” wailed the squaw. “I look to see the clearing, the cabin. I look hard. I look long. Pipina’s eyes were turned from Casson. Then I turn and see him. Then Pipina look again at cabin only as long as for a monkey to swing from tree to tree. Yet when Pipina turn again--Casson is gone.” “Gone!” Bomba sprang wildly to...
“No, Pipina does not know,” came sadly. “He was gone, and Pipina did not dare go from behind the rock for fear she be caught by the bucks of Nascanora.” “But why should Casson wander off?” asked Bomba, in bewilderment. “He was safer behind the rock in the company of Pipina.” The old woman sighed and touched her forehea...
“He cannot find his way anywhere,” declared Bomba sadly. “He will be like a child in the jungle. He will be at the mercy of the big cats, of the anacondas, of the other creeping things that watch and spring upon their prey. Casson might as well have stayed in the hut of fire, for his death in the jungle is as sure.” Pi...
“When Pipina found that Casson was gone what did she do then?” he asked, turning to his companion. “Pipina wait till fire go out and she think Indians go away,” was the reply. “Then she creep back toward the cabin. She hope Bomba come back and help her find Casson. Then the thorns catch Pipina and she stop. She call. B...
“Yes, he will help,” assented Bomba wearily. “Bomba will take Pipina to him where she may rest in the maloca of the good chief. There she will be safe from the headhunters of Nascanora. Then Bomba will find Casson.” But though Bomba spoke with courage, grief possessed him. In his heart he feared that certain death awai...
The old woman shivered and protested. “It is dark,” she complained. “Wait till the sun rises in the sky and we shall go more quickly to the camp of the good chief Hondura.” “In this place there is danger,” returned Bomba, in a low voice, looking uneasily about him. “Even now the scouts of Nascanora may have returned to...
“Bomba will carry Pipina when the road is too rough,” promised the lad. “But by the time the sun rises in the sky we must reach the maloca of Hondura or we are lost.” The old woman hobbled on beside him, whimpering. “Bomba fears nothing, but Pipina is afraid,” she wailed. “There are evil spirits abroad in the night. Th...
Bomba spoke in a very low tone, scarcely above a whisper. But Pipina interrupted him, holding up her hand. “Listen!” she said. “What was that?” For answer Bomba seized her by the shoulders and dragged her down beside him. Surrounded by the thick brush, they were well concealed from any one who did not pass too close. T...
They heard no more for several seconds. Then, not twenty feet from them, the brushwood stirred, and from it they saw two figures emerge and stand faintly outlined against the darker shadows of the jungle. Bomba’s first thought was that perhaps the sound he heard had been caused by Casson. His heart leaped with hope and...
Bomba rejoiced. They had not then found Casson. “It is good,” returned the other. “The squaws and the old men of the tribe will be glad when we tell them that the man who made bad magic is dead.” “But the boy still lives,” returned the other. “Nascanora will not sleep well until he has his head upon his wigwam. Already...
A few more words, and the Indians passed on, their going scarcely disturbing a leaf or a twig. “They pass like the shadows of all things evil,” murmured Bomba to himself, as he cautiously rose again to his feet and prepared to resume his journey. “Come, Pipina.” They made fairly good progress, considering Pipina’s age ...
After a while they heard the sound of rushing water. Bomba lowered Pipina to the ground and stood listening. “The storm has filled the ygapo,” he murmured. “It will be hard crossing. Listen, Pipina.” “I hear,” wailed the squaw. “Bomba cannot ford the ygapo. He must swim, and that will be hard with an old woman on his b...
“There will be caymans in the ygapo,” muttered Bomba thoughtfully. “Bomba cannot swim with Pipina and fight at the same time. Yet we must cross the ygapo if we are to be in the camp of the good chief before the sun comes up.” “Pipina cannot cross,” whimpered the old woman. “She will be killed and Bomba too will be kill...
“A little way from here there is a log across the water,” said Bomba. “What better bridge do Bomba and Pipina want?” “The log is slippery,” moaned Pipina. “Bomba must go on. His feet are sure. But he cannot carry Pipina. He will fall. Bomba go alone. Leave Pipina behind.” Ignoring the woman’s protests, Bomba caught her...
But now the tropical rains had filled the gully, and a raging torrent roared between the banks. Bomba’s bridge would have been but a poor one at the best of times--a tree trunk cut down close to the bank in such a way as to fall across the gulch. Even in the light of day, to cross its moss-grown, treacherous surface wi...
Still the jungle lad did not hesitate. In front was the torrent, behind him the headhunters. He chose what he regarded as the lesser of the two evils, relying upon his strength and his sureness of foot to carry him and his burden to the opposite side. He shut his ears to the menacing roar of the waters. He had defied t...
A PERILOUS CROSSING Beneath him the waters roared and thundered. Pipina whimpered and besought her gods, but the ears of Bomba were deaf to her cries. Underfoot the trunk was like glass. The slightest misstep might mean disaster. But Bomba advanced steadily, scarcely troubled by the light weight of the squaw. He was so...
For one horrible moment Bomba teetered over eternity. Pipina sent up a shrill cry, for she expected that moment to be her last. By a marvelous exercise of muscular control, Bomba balanced himself and retained his foothold upon the log with one foot while he drew up the other and gradually regained his equilibrium. But ...
A great joy was singing in his heart as he set Pipina on her feet. “The gods are with us, Pipina!” he exulted. “Where are your bad spirits now? Tell Bomba that!” “We have not yet reached the maloca of Hondura,” the old squaw reminded him, holding tenaciously to her superstition. “It is not well to rejoice too soon. We ...
His knowledge of the savages and their ways told him that he and Pipina had passed through the ring of the headhunters. Moreover, the maloca of Hondura was now only two hours’ journey away and through a less tangled part of the jungle. True, there was not a moment that did not hold possible peril for them. A boa constr...
When Bomba and his companion reached the outskirts of the native village they found the inhabitants already astir. The wanderers were challenged by scouts, for since the advent of the headhunters a strict watch was kept day and night. But the jungle lad was well known and liked by the members of the tribe. His populari...
Hondura had been watching the meeting with a smile upon his wizened face. Now he came forward, and his greeting, though not so demonstrative, was quite as cordial. “It is good that Bomba is here,” he said. “Bomba has not come for many moons. Hondura is glad. He will make a feast for Bomba and all the tribe will rejoice...
The chief motioned them to seat themselves upon the cushions of rushes within his tepee, and presently food was brought to them which they devoured eagerly, for they had not eaten since noon of the day before. While they ate, Hondura questioned them further, while Pirah sat close to the jungle lad, every now and then r...
“Casson has gone away,” he replied. “He has wandered into the jungle. The headhunters came last night and burned the cabin of Pipina. Bomba was not there. But when he came he found Pipina hiding. She did not know where Casson had gone.” Fire flashed in Hondura’s eyes. “May the curse of the gods rest on Nascanora,” he c...
“The point of your knife should have bit into his heart,” went on Hondura. “Then he would have troubled you no more. Now he hates you more than before and has sworn to have vengeance. His nose is crushed, and the squaws laugh at him behind his back, though they do not dare to smile where he can see them. He would die h...
“The good spirits will be with him in the jungle,” put in little Pirah. “They will bring him safely to Bomba again or to one of the bucks of my father.” Hondura smiled indulgently upon the child and put a hand upon the dark hair. “Pirah speaks well,” he remarked. “May the good spirits be with Casson during his journeyi...
“If the good chief meets the white man, Casson, will he bring him to his maloca and keep him safe until Bomba comes back?” he asked. “That Hondura will do,” promised the chief gravely. For a few moments there was silence, while each stared thoughtfully into the jungle. Then Hondura asked: “Where does Bomba go now that ...
“I shall not leave yet, Hondura,” he replied. “First, I shall search for Casson. I will beat every thicket of the jungle until I find him or feel sure that the gods have taken him. Only after that is done will Bomba set out on a long journey.” “The words are dark yet,” replied the chief. “Where is Bomba going?” “Bomba ...
“I go to seek Japazy, the half-breed,” replied Bomba. “Japazy may tell Bomba what he wishes to know. Jojasta is gone. Sobrinini is gone. Casson is gone. Japazy is the one hope of Bomba. If Japazy is dead--” He did not finish the sentence, but with a shrug of his shoulder stared gloomily before him. There was an interva...
Bomba hesitated for a moment, then spoke: “I go to a spot where it is said I may find Japazy. I go to Jaguar Island.” The stoic calm of the Indian vanished. A look of horror sprang into his eyes. CHAPTER VIII
THE WARNING The chief of the Araos leaned toward Bomba and spoke in a voice charged with intensity: “Hondura is a friend of Bomba. Hondura speaks wise words. If Bomba is wise, he will stay in the maloca of Hondura and not go to the island of the big cats.” Bomba looked puzzled.
“Why does Hondura tell this to Bomba?” he queried. “Because Hondura is friend of Bomba,” replied the chief gravely. “He would not see Bomba put his head within the jaws of death.” “Is it because it is called Jaguar Island?” persisted the lad. “Is it the big cats Hondura fears?” The Indian shook his head.
“The danger Hondura fears for Bomba,” he answered impressively, “is not of this world. It is of the world beyond. Be warned in time, Bomba. Hondura has spoken.” Although Bomba had been taught by Casson to laugh at the superstitions of the natives, he had lived his life too far from civilization not to share to some ext...
“Once a great many moons ago,” began Hondura, “there was above the island of the great cats a big, strange city.” The eyes of Bomba glistened. “Tell me of it!” he cried. “Those that knew of it said it was a city of devils, though its beauty was that of the sun.”
“What made its beauty like the sun?” was Bomba’s eager query. “The towers,” replied Hondura, “were of gold and reached upward like trees to the sky. When men looked upon them long they had to cover their eyes with their hands. Else they would have gone blind.” “I wish that the eyes of Bomba might have seen it, Hondura!...
Bomba was abashed, but asked with undiminished curiosity: “What then became of the city of gold, Hondura? Tell Bomba so that he may know the truth. His heart is thirsty like that of the tapir that bends its head toward the cool water.” “The city sank into the earth,” returned Hondura. “Slowly the mud of the swamp crept...
“The city is gone. Where then is the danger to Bomba, O good and wise chief?” Hondura roused himself from his abstraction and stared at Bomba almost as though he were looking through him to something sinister that lay beyond. “It is true that the city is gone. But strange ghosts arise from it, spirits that harm.” The l...
“The evil spirits walk abroad at night,” the chief continued, “and woe is the portion of those who meet them. For they carry with them pain and pestilence and death. Of those who have met them in the darkness of the night none have come back alive.” Bomba was impressed despite himself. Nevertheless his determination re...
“I am going,” the lad declared. The old chief nodded his head as though, knowing Bomba, he had expected some such answer from the boy. “Go then. But go only to the island of the big cats. Do not go to the place above the island where the city with the towers of gold stood. Find Japazy, the half-breed, and return with s...
Bomba returned the pressure of the warm little hand affectionately. “Pirah is good and Hondura too is good,” he said earnestly. “Bomba would be glad to stay. But he must go.” He turned to the chief. “I go first into the jungle to hunt for Casson,” he said. “I will look for him till I find him or feel sure that he is de...
Pipina set up a wail, but Bomba checked her. “Do not cry, Pipina,” he said. “Bomba has many times gone into the jungle and come back again. Did he not go to the Moving Mountain and return? Did he not come back from the Giant Cataract and the island of snakes? The gods will watch over me, and you can stay here safe with...
“Your heart is big, Hondura, and your heart is good,” he said. “Bomba will not forget.” “It is but little that Hondura is doing for Bomba,” the old chieftain replied. “Did not Bomba save my people? Did he not bring back the women and little children that Nascanora’s bucks had stolen? My people would die for Bomba. And ...
He thought longingly of the “fire stick” and the cartridges that had been destroyed in the blazing cabin. He took the now useless revolver from his pouch where he carried it in a waterproof covering and looked at it sadly. It was a fine weapon, and he had learned to use it effectively, though not yet with the perfect a...
But he had the fatalistic philosophy born of his life in the jungle. The cartridges were gone. He could not help it. Perhaps it had been decreed. Who was he, Bomba, to find fault with the laws that governed the world? For all the rest of that day he hunted feverishly for some trace of Casson. Hardly a foot of ground es...
Then he lay down and slept, not opening his tired eyes till the first break of dawn. All that day and the next Bomba hunted for Cody Casson. He had given himself three days before he would relinquish the quest as hopeless. Occasionally he came upon traces of the headhunters. But the tracks were cold, and Bomba calculat...
At first sight it looked like a crumpled heap of rags. Bomba’s thought was that it was the remains of an old hammock or native rug thrown aside as useless. But there was something in the shape of it that made him revise his opinion, and he approached it with the caution that he always used when in the presence of somet...
Bomba had seen such grisly sights before. They were not uncommon in the jungle, where natives without number met their end by the jaws of the puma and the fangs of the snake. No, it was not the mere sight of a skeleton that made Bomba start so violently. It was the fact that _the skeleton was that of a white man_! CHAP...
THE SKELETON Bomba knew at once that the poor remnant of humanity that lay before him was not that of a native of the country. He knew it by the character of the hair that still adhered to the scalp, by the fragments of skin that still were in evidence. And he knew by the clothes, which, though tattered into shreds, we...
Some hunter, no doubt; a hunter after big game or a hunter of rubber trees, who had come into the dark recesses of the Amazonian jungle. Various signs indicated that the body had been there for some time. How the man had died would never be known. Somewhere in the civilized world he was marked down as “missing.” The ju...
He lifted the skeleton reverently and bore it to the grave. As he did so, something dropped with a metallic sound. He paid no attention to this at the moment, but bestowed the bones carefully in the grave. Then he covered it and rolled great stones over the top that the last resting place of the stranger might be undis...
He handled the objects with a delight beyond all bounds. It was like a gift from the gods. With a trembling hand he took his revolver from its pouch. The cartridges fitted perfectly! Bomba was in a frenzy of rapture. He wanted to shout, to dance, to sing. Now he had another effective weapon, a formidable addition to hi...
It was with a vastly increased confidence that Bomba at last betook himself from the scene. His steps now turned toward a trail about which he had learned from the caboclos of the district, a trail that after long journeying would lead him to the river and to Jaguar Island, where Japazy dwelt. If Bomba could find and k...
“Bomba is sure now of finding the way to Jaguar Island,” he told himself. “If Japazy is there, all may be well. If not, Bomba will have his long journey for nothing.” As he struck out along the trail the lad was seized by a desire for speed that was almost panic. Again and again the thought came to him, giving new stim...
Bomba could not go without food, but he could go without sleep, or at least do with very little. But exhausted nature took its toll after he had traveled through the long hours of the night and faced a gray-streaked dawn, spent and haggard-eyed. Sleep weighted his eyelids, dragged at his feet. Bomba lay down and slept....
With a mighty gasping effort, Bomba heaved his body beyond the reach of the fire--and opened his eyes! Instantly he was wide awake. Night had crept upon him while he slept, and now upon the wings of darkness rode a fearful storm filling the jungle with wailings and thunderings. Bomba leaped to his feet and looked about...
But this consideration was soon swept aside by the realization of his own immediate peril. With every moment the storm increased in fury. So far, it had been wind and thunder and lightning, but no rain. Now the heavens opened and the rain descended in blinding torrents. Bomba was at a loss as to where to fly for shelte...
He leaped back, but not in time. A tree, as though uprooted by a giant’s hand, crashed to the ground, bearing all before it. Bomba felt himself flung through the air, was conscious of a piercing pain in the back of his head, and then for a time knew nothing. How long he lay pinioned beneath the branches of the tree, Bo...
Both hands were imprisoned by the branches, but after considerable effort he managed to free one of them. This he moved cautiously about to the back of his head. There was a bump on it as big as an egg, but he could discover no gash in the scalp. His head then was not lying in a pool of blood. It was imbedded in the th...
He lay now, half upon solid ground and half in the swamp. The branches of the tree pinioned the lower part of his body, but his head and shoulders rested in the thick muck. Then, with a thrill of horror, he realized that he was sinking deeper. He knew how readily the ygapo engulfed anything that ventured upon it. Had h...
But the machete was in his belt near that right hand that had no sense of feeling. To get at it with his left he would first have to break away the branches that pressed so heavily upon his chest. And to do this with his bare hands seemed impossible. Bomba tried to hold his head above the ooze, raising it by the sheer ...
“I shall never see Casson now, if he be still alive,” he murmured. “Japazy, the half-breed, will die with the secret that I seek still hidden in his heart.” Then his anger at fate turned against himself. “Bomba was a fool to sleep,” he gritted through his clenched teeth. “If he had been awake, he would have seen the st...
Then, in a turning of his head, he saw a sight that chilled his blood. His body became instantly as rigid as stone. Not ten feet from him he saw a mass of coils that he recognized from the markings as that of the Brazilian rattlesnake, the jararaca. The mass lay almost motionless and, except for an occasional slight he...
If the reptile were sleeping, any movement of Bomba’s might wake it. Even if it were wounded, it would certainly make an effort to destroy the lad if it should discover him. It seemed only a matter of dying in one way or another. Either the snake or the swamp would bring him death. In either case his death would be a h...
Gradually the coils unwound. The hideous triangular head came in sight. The reptile looked slowly about as though deciding which way to go. Then the snake saw Bomba! CHAPTER X WRITHING COILS
Bomba saw the malignant fury that came into the snake’s eyes. He knew that the reptile had seen him, and over the boy’s face, like a pallid cloak, spread the calmness of despair. This then was the end! He might live perhaps ten, fifteen, possibly twenty minutes after the poison fangs had sunk into his flesh, and they w...
But even while he waited, something swished past his head, coming from the tree above. It was a castanha nut, one of those huge, heavy nuts that, falling on a man’s head, may fracture his skull. The missile, flung with deadly aim, hit the head of the rattlesnake, crushing it into pulp. Bomba opened his eyes as the coil...
By some miracle the enemy had been vanquished. Was it the storm that had loosened the great nut which was almost as large as Bomba’s head? If so, it was perhaps a sign from the gods of the Indians that Bomba was not to die until his work should be accomplished. But his first joy at his deliverance was quickly followed ...
Bomba lay very still as the shape came toward him. Whether it was man or beast he could not tell, for there was no word from the one or growl from the other. Then a hairy paw was laid upon his arm, and Bomba thrilled with a new hope. He knew the touch of that paw, knew that at last he had met a friend. “Doto!” he cried...
Bomba was exceedingly fond of the big monkey, and now he stroked the hairy arm and head affectionately. “Once more Doto has saved the life of Bomba,” the lad said. “Bomba is grateful.” The monkey pressed against him, answering in a language Bomba had come to understand. But suddenly Doto sprang to his feet, looking abo...

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