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“Doto wants Bomba to be free?” asked Bomba, and the monkey broke into a chatter of assent. “Then Doto must help Bomba,” and the lad pointed to the mass of branches that held him prisoner. “Doto break branches so that Bomba can get knife that is at his belt,” directed the jungle boy. The monkey appeared to understand an...
“The machete, Doto!” he cried. “Get the big knife of Bomba!” He had often showed the knife to Doto in their conferences in the forest and boasted of its power. Doto knew what Bomba meant when he spoke of the machete, and he knew also that Bomba carried it at his belt. He reached his furry paw beneath the branches and d...
The task of cutting away the imprisoning branches was a laborious one, flat upon his back as he was and having only the use of his left hand. But it was the faithful Doto who lifted the boy’s head from the ooze and supported his shoulder so that he could do the work more easily. Gradually the bonds across his chest rel...
He grew tired and paused at times to rest, but it was always Doto that urged him on to fresh effort. That the monkey scented danger, Bomba knew, and yet, listen as he would, he could hear no sound that had menace in it. Still he trusted the instinct of the monkey. The ears of Bomba were keen, but those of Doto were kee...
He placed the monkey’s paws beneath his shoulders and signified that it was to pull with all its strength. This Doto did, and Bomba ground his teeth with pain as he was at last drawn clear of the branches. With difficulty he stood upon his feet, leaning heavily against Doto. He was stiff and sore in every muscle. It wa...
Still, the heart of the lad swelled with exultation and a new sense of power. He stood upright, his machete was at his side; his bow was still intact, his quiver full of arrows, and in his pouch was his greatly prized revolver, once again fully loaded. He felt of his right arm and found that it was unbroken. There was ...
Bomba tried a few steps and found that he could walk, though waveringly. So he motioned to the monkey to go ahead and lead the way. This Doto did with great alacrity, pausing when his pace became too swift for Bomba and waiting till the boy caught up with him. Thus they traveled for a considerable distance through the ...
For answer Doto broke into a frantic chattering and pulled the boy along by the arm. Suddenly the eyes of Bomba narrowed and he pressed a hand over the monkey’s mouth. “Wait!” he commanded sharply. “Bomba has heard something in the jungle.” The monkey’s chatter ceased, and behind him in the darkness Bomba heard the fai...
He listened and heard it again, but not in the same place. Again the faint pad, pad of feet moving stealthily, but this time more to the east. Once more that ominous sound. This time to the north. Bomba knew that sound. He knew the smell that came to his keen nostrils. Pumas! Three of them at least. They were stalking ...
CHAPTER XI THE TRAILING PUMAS Against one puma, despite its terrible teeth and claws, Bomba would have had a fair chance of success in warding off an attack. His arrow might reach its heart before it could spring. But if three attacked at once, he would have no chance at all. He and Doto must reach some place of safety...
Doto was tugging frantically at his arm, and Bomba broke into a quick pantherlike run. But the pumas quickened their pace also, instinct telling them that their intended surprise had failed. There was the breaking of brushwood all about as the great beasts burst through. With Doto still clutching his arm, Bomba and the...
The entrance was too narrow for both, and their heads were jammed together. They pulled back, snapping and snarling, and in a second were engaged in deadly combat. The diversion seemed to give Bomba the chance that he wanted. He slipped the bow from his shoulder and drew an arrow from his quiver. But the implement must...
Bomba threw the bow aside with an exclamation of anger. Then he drew his revolver from its pouch and, reaching for his machete, held it in his left hand. With either he could wound, perhaps kill, one of his enemies. But he was still uncertain but what the others would have to be reckoned with, and, in that case, he kne...
Then Bomba felt rather than heard the stealthy approach of the great brute. Two yellow glints appeared before the mouth of the cave. Two glaring, sinister eyes peered in. Bomba shrank back into the darkness and his grip tightened about his weapons. But as he waited, braced for the attack, he felt a sharp pull on his ar...
“Do not hinder Bomba, Doto,” he hissed through his set teeth. “Bomba fights for his life.” But Doto persisted, and by main strength drew Bomba back, took the boy’s hand, and laid it upon something that was cold to the touch. Instantly Bomba grasped the monkey’s meaning. Here was a rock, a great rock, set not far from t...
The third puma was cautious. The hole was black. The man creature would be armed with things that stung. The beast still limped from an arrow wound in the leg, probably inflicted by an Indian, and was distrustful of the creatures that walked on two legs. Bomba hastily thrust his weapons back into his pouch. With the he...
With a blood-curdling snarl of rage it leaped forward. With one great despairing heave Bomba and Doto pushed the rock against the opening, sealing it. Not a minute, not a second too soon! The great stone caught the foot of the puma, crushing it. With a roar of rage and pain the brute pulled the injured member free and ...
Bomba reached out a hand and caressed the head of the faithful monkey. “Bomba has good friend in Doto,” said the lad earnestly. “Doto could have saved himself in the trees and left Bomba to the hungry jaws of the puma. Again Doto has saved the life of Bomba, and Bomba will not forget.” The monkey snuggled closer agains...
Doto made a sound that Bomba interpreted as assent. Bomba made a quick exploration of the cave to make sure that there was no entrance from the back. Then he lay down for a much-needed rest. His body was sore and aching, and he was exhausted physically and mentally by the fearful strain he had undergone. Doto lay down ...
The mind of Bomba was full of many things. He was both glad and sorrowful. Glad, because twice that night he had been snatched from the very jaws of death. Sorrowful, because by reason of these perils he had been delayed so long on his journey to Japazy. The panic of dread was still upon him lest on reaching Jaguar Isl...
“Bomba is white,” he said to himself, “and yet he is grateful for the presence of a friendly beast of the jungle. Will Bomba never know even his name? Will he never know the name of the beautiful woman in the picture, the lovely face that seemed to smile down at Bomba?” Musing thus, he fell asleep and did not wake unti...
Doto sensed his condition, and tried by chatter and gesture to induce the boy to remain in the cave for a while until his bruised body was well again. Bomba hesitated, for he knew well that he should not face the dangers of the jungle in his half-crippled condition. The cave was safe. There was enough cooked meat in th...
“Bomba must go on, Doto,” he said, as he smoothed the shaggy head. “The cave is warm and safe and comfortable and there is meat in plenty for Bomba and Doto, but Bomba must go into the jungle to meet whatever waits for him there. Bomba cannot linger here, even though his going may mean death to him. He must take his ch...
There was a chance that one of the pumas at least had not been content to leave the spot where the boy and the monkey had disappeared. The enemy might still be waiting among the trees or thickets ready to pounce on the first that should issue forth from the cave. So Bomba moved with the caution that was habitual with h...
But in a moment he realized that it was not a warning but a summons, and he began slowly to approach the tree from which Doto was hanging by one paw. With the other he was pointing eagerly to something that lay on the ground, hidden, so far, from Bomba’s view. The boy pushed aside the underbrush and then understood wha...
Bomba knew that but for the timely interference and help of Doto, he, too, might have been lying in some such pool as this. But he would not have been as intact as the puma. All that would have been left of him would have been a few scattered bones. He would have furnished a royal meal for the denizens of the jungle. H...
The monkey whimpered and put his hand on Bomba’s shoulder. No human being could have asked more clearly that he be permitted to go along. But Bomba smiled affectionately and patted the creature’s head. “Bomba must go alone,” he said. “He must sail great waters where Doto would be lonely and afraid because there were no...
Bomba looked after him sadly, sighed, and then began preparations for his journey. First he looked to his weapons. He found the revolver in perfect shape, its waterproof covering having protected it from moisture. He took one of the strongest and most pliant strings of those that Hondura had given him and strung it to ...
“Without this bow,” murmured Bomba to himself, as he gave it an affectionate pat and slung it over his shoulder, “what chance would Bomba have to find meat to eat? How could he defend himself against the wild beasts that seek his life? He would be helpless and could never hope to reach the island of the big cats.” In h...
Another handicap attached itself to Bomba’s journey. In that part of the jungle where Bomba had grown up he had learned of places of refuge for times of sudden stress. He knew of caves, of crevices only wide enough for himself to squeeze through, of deserted cabins, of hollow trees, of a host of similar hiding places a...
The hope that before many days had sped he would have realized his heart’s desire quickened his steps until he found himself breaking into a run. For two days more he traveled along a trail that grew ever more difficult. The lack of human inhabitants had caused the trail in many places to be overgrown, and Bomba’s mach...
Sometimes he stopped to cook the meat; at other times he ate it raw. Always he hurried on, flogging himself to renewed effort, allowing only the most meager intervals for food and rest. Then one day, when he had come upon the trail of a tapir and was stalking it, that sixth sense of his told him that he, too, was being...
Now he saw what had before been hidden from him, a crouching, sinuous body, ears laid flat against a wicked head, eyes gleaming and greedy. “A jaguar!” muttered Bomba, as he quickly fitted an arrow to his bow. “Already they lie in wait for me. Bomba must kill this one as a warning to the others to beware.” But even as ...
A TERRIFIC BATTLE But even while the beast was in mid-air, a great yellow body came hurtling over the underbrush and struck the jaguar almost at right angles. The impact was terrible, and the two brutes went down in a heap. Snarling and spitting, they scrambled up and faced each other, and the next moment were engaged ...
Astounded beyond expression, Bomba thought for a moment that two jaguars were doing battle for their prey. But the next moment he recognized in the newcomer Polulu, the great puma, Bomba’s chief friend and ally among the jungle folk. “Polulu!” he gasped in delight. “Good Polulu! He saw that Bomba was in danger and has ...
But Polulu needed no help to dispose of his enemy. He had no match in the jungle for size and strength, and was rapidly getting the better of the combat when, with a savage roar, a second jaguar, possibly the mate of the first, plunged into the fight. The newcomer sank its teeth deep into Polulu’s flank while at the sa...
He buried his hand in the thick fur of the second jaguar’s neck, and as the beast turned snarling to meet this new attack, raised his machete and, with all his force, drove it downward. He sensed the bite of the sharp steel on flesh, felt it slip along bone and reach the brain of the beast. As though lifted by an earth...
Then the lad scrambled to his feet, regained his machete, which had been knocked from his hand as he withdrew it, and hurried again to the help of Polulu. But Polulu stood in no need of help. Relieved of the flank attack, he had at last got the hold upon his opponent’s throat for which he had been seeking, and in a few...
“Good Polulu!” cried the lad. “Brave Polulu! There is no beast of the jungle so strong as Polulu, the friend of Bomba. He has saved Bomba’s life.” The queer friendship between the two had begun some years before when Bomba had found the puma pinned beneath a falling tree that had caught and broken one of its legs. Bomb...
Then, having done all he could to sooth the pain and staunch the bleeding, Bomba offered Polulu food and drink. But though the beast drank avidly of the cool water, he would not touch the food. Bomba’s own supplies were running low now, and he saw in the dead jaguars a chance to replenish them. Jaguar meat was not exac...
The puma whined, pressed against him, and looked up into his face as though beseeching that he might go with him. But Bomba shook his head sadly. “Where Bomba goes he must go alone,” he said. “The man he goes to see would be afraid if he saw Polulu, and would tell his people to kill him. Then Bomba’s heart would be hea...
He had been warned by the attack of the jaguar that he must now be doubly on his guard. He realized that, whereas the big cats usually hesitated to attack unless they themselves were attacked or were sorely pressed by hunger, here in this desolate region they would assail him boldly, fearlessly, knowing little of man a...
Luck was with him, for he killed a tapir, and this time he cured enough of the meat to last him, by his calculations, until he could reach the island of Japazy. Now with his larder stocked, he could devote himself solely to the one end he had in view. His conviction never faltered that once he came face to face with th...
CHAPTER XIII IN THE BOA CONSTRICTOR’S FOLDS Under other circumstances Bomba might have hesitated before he rushed to the spot from which that scream proceeded. He would have feared a decoy, a trap. But there was such genuine terror, such awful anguish in that blood-curdling shriek that he hurried with all the speed he ...
A man, by his color an Indian, was struggling in the coils of a giant boa constrictor. His features were distorted with agony. The coils of the great snake were wound about the man’s right arm and striving to crush it into pulp. The victim was tearing wildly at the snake’s body with the free arm, but as the hand held n...
Now the great body was lashing wildly about, the tail seeking a stump or a tree trunk on which it could get a grip. With this for purchase, it could crush its victim instantly, draw the body into its coils, squeeze it into a shapeless mass, and then devour it at leisure. Bomba sensed the situation in an instant. There ...
The bow twanged and the arrow transfixed that hideous head. There was a fearful hissing and thrashing, the coils fell apart, and the body of the reptile dropped to the ground. There it floundered about for a minute or two and then lay motionless. The man who had so narrowly escaped a horrible death had fallen to the ea...
At the same instant the man’s companion sprang to offer a similar service, and he and Bomba came face to face. There was a gasp of astonished recognition. “Bomba!” “Neram!”
Bomba found himself looking into the eyes of Neram, one of the two slaves he had rescued from the tyranny of Jojasta on his memorable visit to the Moving Mountain. The delight of Neram at the meeting was unbounded, and that of Bomba was scarcely less great. Following Bomba’s rescue of Sobrinini, the ex-slaves had begge...
There was little time at present for explanations, for Ashati demanded all their attention. The man had fainted from fright and pain. Neram ran to get some water, while Bomba chafed his wrists and slapped his face. It was not long before, under these ministrations, Ashati opened his eyes. An expression of panic came ov...
“Bomba?” exclaimed Ashati excitedly. He turned his head from Neram, and as his gaze fell upon Bomba such a look of rapturous delight and doglike devotion came into his eyes that the lad’s heart was touched. “Yes, Bomba is here,” said the jungle boy, as he put his hand affectionately on Ashati’s head. “Bomba heard Ashat...
Bomba and Neram bathed the arm and applied a plaster of river mud. Then they propped the man as comfortably as they could against the back of a tree, first making a careful examination of the branches to see that no other monster lurked above. “Bomba is great,” murmured the grateful sufferer, as he looked with a shudde...
“Neram tried to help Ashati,” broke in Neram. “But he could not get close with his knife. And Neram did not dare shoot his arrow for fear he would kill Ashati. Neram cannot shoot as straight as Bomba.” “The gods have been good,” returned Bomba. “The big snake is dead. We will eat of its flesh, for it is good. Neram wil...
“Neram and Ashati did not find her,” replied the former. “There was no sign of Sobrinini in the jungle. There were no footprints. She must have melted into air. She could have done this, for she was a witch.” “She was a witch,” echoed Ashati, making a cabalistic sign to ward off evil spirits. “Ashati and Neram talk foo...
“If Ashati and Neram could not find Sobrinini,” went on Bomba, after a moment of meditation, “why did they not come back to the cabin of Pipina and tell Bomba?” “They wanted to come,” replied Neram, “but Neram was taken sick with fever in the jungle, and it was many weeks before he was strong enough to walk. And then A...
“Yes,” returned Bomba. “The headhunters burned it with fire.” “The headhunters!” cried Neram, a shudder going through him at the mention of the dread name. “May the curse of the gods rest upon them!” growled Ashati. “And the good Casson? And Pipina?” asked Neram anxiously. “Are they hurt? Did the headhunters carry them...
“No,” replied Bomba. “Pipina got away, and Bomba has taken her to the camp of the good chief, Hondura. But Casson wandered away into the jungle. Bomba has looked hard for him, but could not find him. Now the bucks of Hondura are looking for Casson. “Now listen well to the words of Bomba,” he continued. “Ashati and Nera...
The ex-slaves shuddered at Bomba’s words. Their features became livid with fear. “Jaguar Island!” exclaimed Ashati. “To go to Jaguar Island is death,” declared Neram solemnly. “That is what Neram and Ashati said before when Bomba went to the island of snakes to find Sobrinini,” replied the lad. “But Bomba did not die.”...
“To go to Jaguar Island is death,” repeated Neram stubbornly. “They are foolish words that Neram speaks,” said Bomba. “There is death in many places, and Bomba has faced it often. He will face it again, if it is at Jaguar Island. But why is Neram so afraid that his blood is like water in his veins? Is it because of the...
“Ghosts,” said Neram. “Demons,” added Ashati. Despite himself, Bomba was impressed by the utter conviction expressed by the two. This was what Hondura had said. Was there indeed some foundation for the dread that seemed to seize everybody at the mention of Jaguar Island? “Bomba has never seen a ghost or a demon,” the l...
“But they have seen him,” returned Ashati, with a shiver. “Perhaps they are looking at Bomba now.” The eyes of the ex-slaves glanced about affrightedly at the darkening shadows of the jungle and Bomba felt as though cold water were trickling down his spine. “If there are ghosts and demons there, how is it that Japazy s...
“He is the lord of ghosts and demons,” declared Ashati. “They do his bidding.” Again that chill ran along Bomba’s spine. What was it that Neram had said? “Things that the arrow cannot pierce and the knife cannot bite!”
CHAPTER XIV EYES THAT GLARED With an exclamation of impatience, Bomba broke the spell that was stealing over him and leaped to his feet. “Bomba will go!” he cried, and his vibrant voice rang out like a challenge through the jungle. “Is Bomba a woman to listen to such things and tremble? Shall he whimper as the monkey w...
Ashati gave vent to a wailing cry and Neram covered his face with his hands. In their superstitious fancy Bomba was already as good as dead. “Bomba is brave,” Ashati moaned, “but it is not well to brave the things that come from another world.” “Bomba’s life is his own,” returned the lad. “He does with it as he wills. ...
Bomba himself was thinking deeply. It had been in his mind to ask Ashati and Neram to accompany him. The loneliness of his days and nights was wearing upon him. It would be good to have companionship, some one to whom he could talk at times and unburden his heart. Then, too, Ashati and Neram were skilled in woodcraft a...
“Yes,” put in Neram, “we will follow Bomba even to the land of ghosts and demons.” The lad was profoundly touched, for he knew that each believed that he was signing his own death warrant. “Ashati and Neram are good, and Bomba will not forget,” he said. “But where Bomba goes he must go alone. And now Bomba has spoken, ...
Again a shudder stole through Neram as he mentioned that sinister name. Ashati added further details of the journey, and by the time the conference was finished Bomba had gained a great deal of information that would be of service to him. “It is well,” said the lad. “And now it is time that we sleep, for Bomba must sta...
The boy slept as soon as his head touched the ground, and did not wake till he felt Neram’s hand upon his shoulder at the first streak of dawn. The faithful ex-slave had composed a savory stew, and they all ate heartily. Ashati’s arm, though still painful, was much better, and a great deal of the swelling had gone down...
“And they will give much meat to the medicine man so that he may pray to his gods for Bomba,” added Ashati. With a last wave of the hand, Bomba left them, and they stood looking after him until the jungle swallowed him up. Then, with heavy hearts, they took the backward trail to Hondura’s camp. Bomba went on at a good ...
Much more than for Sobrinini did he sorrow for Casson. Dear old Casson had been a part of his life. It was hard to think of existence without him. And he had been white, so different from the brown-skinned natives with their ignorance, their superstition, their narrowed lives. White! That was the most precious word in ...
“After all,” he said to himself, “what is Bomba but a thing of the jungle? They would be ashamed to show him to their white friends. And yet that thing of the jungle saved their lives. Bomba’s knife was good when they needed it. Bomba’s arrows were good. But now they have forgotten him as the jungle forgets the mists a...
For some time past, as he journeyed on engrossed in thought, Bomba had been conscious of a rumbling in the distance. It was so far away that he had paid little attention to it. Now it had grown louder, and it forced itself upon his attention. Was it thunder? The sky was azure and the sun was shining with dazzling brill...
Bomba was perhaps twenty miles to the left of it. Now he hastened to make the distance still greater. For at the Giant Cataract was the village of Nascanora, he whose nose Bomba had crushed, he who was reserving a special place on the top of his wigwam for the head of the jungle boy who had shamed him before his follow...
If the former, he would be supremely happy. If the latter--well, Bomba had known how to live. He would know how to die. As the shades of night were drawing on he came to an old ramshackle native hut, long since abandoned. There was no door. Only the four walls were standing, and they were bending crazily. Even at that,...
Then he lay down to sleep on the earthen floor of the hut. His tired eyes closed almost instantly. How long he slept he did not know. But he was awakened at last by a queer sensation, as though he were rocking up and down in a canoe. His first thought was of earthquake. It was a common enough occurrence in that distric...
Bomba sprang to his feet, every sense on the alert. Beneath the place where he had been lying the earthen floor was heaving like the waves. Then it broke apart, and from the shattered opening rose a great head whose open jaws were armed with terrible rows of teeth. Bomba looked into the fiery eyes of a monster alligato...
CHAPTER XV THE RUSHING RIVER For a moment the lad stood as though turned into stone, astounded and appalled. Then he realized what had happened. The alligator, following a custom of its kind, had buried itself in the soft mud, on the same principle that a bear hibernates in winter. Probably a flood some time before had...
The weight and warmth of the boy’s body had aroused it, and now it was issuing forth to renew once more its active life. For a moment the great brute seemed as much surprised as the lad himself, and looked stupidly at the invader of its retreat. But only for a moment. Then a hideous bellow issued from its open jaws, it...
For Bomba had shaken off the paralysis that the sight of the monster had brought upon him, and with one bound had cleared the doorway, leaping high over the fire that blazed in front of the hut. With speed incredible in so clumsy a creature, the alligator pursued him. But it could not leap like Bomba, and with the torp...
But there was no more sleep for him that night. He had been too thoroughly shaken. He made up the fire again and sat down beside it, keeping a careful watch lest the monster, still lurking in the vicinity, should return to take vengeance on the author of its misadventure. But nothing happened during the remainder of th...
Where Bomba stood the river was about half a mile in width, but a little further down it expanded to more than twice that width. Great trees fringed the banks, the foliage reaching far out over the water. Bomba hunted the banks for a long distance on the chance that he might find the canoe of some Indian, either abando...
He had no implements of any kind, except his machete. He had no nails or hammer with which to fasten a flooring to the logs to hold them together. But there was an abundance of withes and creepers that, twisted together, were as strong as any rope, and these he wound about the logs in such a way that they could not bre...
After two days’ labor his work was done, and he surveyed it with satisfaction. It was as nearly square as he could make it and sufficiently large so that it would not easily overturn. In addition to the raft, he had shaped a rough paddle for his steering and a long pole to work the raft loose, if it grounded in a shall...
The current was stronger than he had thought, and the clumsy raft was borne along upon the surface at a surprising rate of speed. At times it was caught in a cross-current and whirled about, and Bomba had all he could do to keep his balance. And it was extremely desirable that he should keep his balance. It would not d...
Once he came to a rapids where the churning water made all attempts to steer impossible, and his raft was tossed about like a chip. One sudden heave threw Bomba to the floor of the raft, and he all but slid into the water. But he caught his hands in the crevices of the logs and held on for dear life. And now he noted t...
He selected the largest of the alligators, and, reaching for bow and arrow, took careful aim at one of its eyes. The arrow went straight to the reptile’s brain. Its dying flurry churned the water into foam, but before the body could sink half a dozen of its mates were upon it. In a minute they had torn the body into fr...
Vain hope! For in a little while he could see phosphorescent gleams in the water behind him that he knew marked the trails of the caymans. They were coming again. Their appetite for blood had not been satiated. Rather it had been whetted. They wanted Bomba! And they were determined to have him! CHAPTER XVI
JAGUAR ISLAND Despite his iron courage, Bomba could not repress a shudder. To be sure, he still had his bow and arrows, and what he had done once he might do again. But now he was handicapped by the darkness. It had come on swiftly. It would be almost half an hour before the moon would rise. And how could he shoot in t...
For he must kill it there or nowhere. Against the tough, scaly armor that covered the brute from snout to tail, fifty arrows might strike as harmlessly as hail on a roof. He strained his eyes through the darkness ahead, hoping to see some still blacker blot that might betray the presence of land. He felt that by now he...
Quick as lightning, Bomba grabbed the long pole, and with all the strength of his muscular arms rammed it down the monster’s throat. The brute slid off the raft into the water, and instantly its comrades were on it like a pack of wolves. Relieved of its burden, the raft righted and swung ahead in the current. A moment ...
Still maintaining his hold on the bough with one hand, Bomba took from around his neck where he had wound it a strong rope of creepers and fastened the raft to the bough so that it could not drift away. Then he leaped to shore. He threw himself on the ground at full length, panting and exhausted. Land! To feel the soli...
So, tired as he was, he got to his feet and made his way cautiously inland until he came to a thorn thicket, into which he burrowed, not without scratches on arms and legs. But what were scratches to one who had escaped the jaws of the caymans? Was he on Jaguar Island? Or had he struck a smaller island? Ashati and Nera...
But he did not sleep. For, if he were not already on Jaguar Island, he still had a trip to make that night. He had vowed to himself that he would not sleep until he had reached the island where Japazy dwelt. Then only would he lie down to slumber. Perhaps to the slumber that knows no waking! He knew that, too. But the ...
Once more he would trust himself to the swift turbulent river. He came to the place where his raft was swinging in the sedge grass near the shore. His eyes scanned the river anxiously. But there were no more of those streaks of phosphorescence in evidence. The alligators had waited for a while perhaps, angry and disapp...
Now he was on the last lap of his journey, the journey that had taken him so many weary days, that had been so full of peril and adventure, and during which his life had so many times seemed to depend upon the turning of a hair. Was not the very fact that he had been so preserved, Bomba asked himself, a proof that the ...
Now the noise took on a deeper note, and with the humming were mingled discordant notes, rumbling notes, ominous notes, with an occasional crash as of faraway thunder. Something like this Bomba had heard on his visit to the Moving Mountain. At that time they had been a prelude to a frightful earthquake. Was anything of...
Now other lights, some faint, some bright, began to stud the surface of the stream. There were many of them, and they flared up and went out as though at the caprice of a magician. All the time the humming sound persisted. Bomba began to feel the hair slowly rising on his head. This transcended anything in his experien...
He rose to the surface and shook the spray from his eyes. In the churning waters he could see the separated logs of the raft tossing about in wild confusion. He grasped one of them and hung on desperately until the current carried him and his slender support into the comparatively quiet waters beyond. Then he climbed u...
And the caymans! He looked behind him fearfully. But there were none of those phosphorescent streaks to betray the presence of the monsters. How long would it be, however, before there would be a break of the water and the emerging of the hideous head of one of the lords of the river! Sitting astride the log, his legs ...
He drifted nearer and nearer to it. Now he was not more than a hundred feet away. Bomba braced himself for the jar that would come when the log struck the shore. Once more he looked behind. That look almost made his heart stop beating. He saw a phosphorescent streak! CHAPTER XVII

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