CHAPTER XVIGRIPPED
The fury of the storm was over, but evidences of it remained.
Castanha nuts lay thick upon the ground. Here a tree had been riven by lightning from top to base. There a forest monarch, uprooted by the gale, lay prostrate.
Again and again Bomba was compelled to make detours. But he advanced rapidly, nevertheless, so much was he a part of the jungle. He avoided upflung roots and intertwining vines as though by instinct.
At times he had to use his machete to force a way for himself through the bushes. In other places, where the undergrowth was not too high, he progressed after the manner of the Indians, in a succession of deer-like leaps that carried him over the obstacles in his path.
His steps now led him toward the ygapo, for it was necessary for him to pass through the swamp before reaching the river beyond which lay the maloca of the Araos, a comparativelyfriendly tribe with whom he and Casson had had no differences, although there was never any intimacy between them.
From these he hoped to obtain a pair of cotton hammocks to replace those that had been burned in the fire that had visited the hut. He would gather something on the way to pay for them, perhaps a jaboty or agouti, or possibly some eggs of the forest tortoise, which were always acceptable to natives of the region.
He might, too, learn something about the plans of the head-hunters, if those fierce foes were still in that part of the jungle. Since his first encounter, he had seen no traces of them, although the thought of them was always in the back of his mind.
As Casson had said, the savages were like children, as far as fixity of purpose was concerned. They were ignorant and superstitious, and any unlooked-for incident might be interpreted by them as a sign of the displeasure of their gods at their present expedition and make them return to their home near the Giant Cataract.
But Bomba knew that such good luck was not to be relied on. He knew that at this very moment the band of invaders might be searching the jungle, intent on taking the life of Casson, and that in all likelihood they would try to complete their work by taking his own.
But it was likely that the Araos would know something of the whereabouts of the head-hunters, who were as much a foe of theirs as of the two whites. Bomba thought he might make some kind of a treaty with the more friendly natives to help him and Casson in case of need, or at least to keep him informed by some swift courier of any threatening developments.
Nature was beautiful in the jungle after the storm. The sky above was turquoise and the air, washed clean by rain, was like topaz. The vivid green of the shrubs and the grasses shone like emerald.
The living things had come out from the shelters to which they had been driven by the tempest. Clouds of mazarine-colored butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Humming-birds, green-backed, lily-breasted, with purple throat and crest, darted hither and thither like living gems, with a hundred firelike reflections scintillating from their little bodies.
Then there were the trogons, motmots and kingfishers glowing with iridescent hues, flocks of scarlet macaws, flamingoes almost equally gorgeous, each standing on one long slender leg and basking in the sun; herons, plover, toucans and scores of other curious birds that make the Amazon jungle the most wonderful natural aviary on earth.
Bomba had the soul of a poet, and the beauty of it all sank deep. For a time he almost forgot his errand, so entranced was he by the glories spread so lavishly about him. He paused to look about in delight mingled with wonder that such loveliness could exist.
Not only the living things, but the plants and trees and flowers had their appeal to him. There was the giant mora tree, two hundred feet high, aglow with clusters of scarlet blossoms, feathery palms, the bright yellow trumpet flower with blooms so large that they were worn as hats by the Indian women and children, huge fuchsias with their purplish tubular bells, heliotrope, verbenas, orchids, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow.
The whole region was ablaze with beauty beyond the power of an artist to paint or the imagination of a dreamer to conceive.
As Bomba approached the edge of the ygapo, however, the beauty began to fade, and nature assumed a more sombre aspect. The riot of color died on the borders of the swamp, and its place was taken by drabness and desolation.
With a feeling of sick distaste Bomba left the region that had almost made him lose himself in dreams and began to thread the mazes of the swamp.
Part of it was intersected with deep pools, inwhich he had to wade, sometimes to the waist. Other sections were comparatively free from water, but deep in mud.
But Bomba knew the swamp as he knew the jungle, knew how to keep a reasonably straight course through the pathless waste and how to avoid the deeper and more dangerous parts.
He had gone about halfway across the dismal place when he came upon a sight that chilled the blood in his veins. Used as he was to the presence of all sorts of reptiles in the jungle, and especially in the ygapo, he was filled with a sensation of loathing and disgust as he viewed the scene before him.
In a shallow, muddy pool, about thirty feet in front of him, he saw a mass of writhing snakes, gray in color like the mud in which they wallowed.
“Sucurujus!” muttered Bomba, as he saw that the group embraced scores of the dreaded anacondas of the Amazon.
They were of all sizes, some of them six or seven feet in length, others three times as long.
They seemed at first to take no notice of Bomba. Most of them were sleeping, some with their bodies half-submerged beneath the lukewarm, shallow ooze. Others had crawled upon the bodies of their comrades, while still others lay lazily on the borders of the pool, basking in the sun.
Lucky for him, thought Bomba, that he had not been crossing the ygapo after the setting of the sun had bathed the swamp in darkness. To have stepped into that crawling mass would have meant certain and horrible death.
Bomba hated the anaconda more than he did any other denizen of the jungle. That hate dated back to the time he had been attacked by one of the reptiles and Casson had fired the rifle, which, though it frightened away the anaconda, had had such dire results to poor Casson himself.
His hand fell on the butt of his revolver, which he had taken care to load again while he was in the little native hut, after he had buried Tatuc. It was a tempting target that offered itself to him.
A few shots into that writhing mass would take a terrible toll. In a sense, it would take revenge for Casson’s injury. His finger itched to pull the trigger.
But he restrained himself. It would be well to let well enough alone. They were lazy and somnolent, scarcely aware of his presence. Why provoke a conflict which he might avoid?
Besides, cartridges were precious, and he must conserve them.
So, with a sigh, he restrained the impulse and, edging his way to the right, he made a wide circle about the nest of snakes, watching theground carefully, lest one of the monsters should cross his path.
But it was from above that danger came.
A dark, sinister, rope-like body slithered silently from a tree above Bomba’s head.
The next instant what seemed a band of iron tightened about the boy’s chest!