CHAPTER VTERRIBLE JAWS
Atthe mention of Sobrinini’s name Cody Casson sprang to his feet, his weakness temporarily banished, and began to dance around the room, singing in a cracked, treble voice “la, la, la!” over and over again. Not until he was exhausted did he cease his gyrations and sink quivering into his chair.
Bomba watched the sudden transformation with consternation and alarm. What did this strange outbreak mean?
But he forebore to question until Casson ceased trembling and became once more like his customary self. Then the boy leaned toward the old man and said gently:
“I was talking about Sobrinini.” Again the old man started, but did not rise. Bomba went on:
“Jojasta told me to go to Sobrinini, she of the Pilati tribe beyond the Giant Cataract, to find out about my father and mother.”
“Yes, Nini ought to know,” muttered Casson. “She ought to know.”
“Who is Sobrinini and why should she know?” asked Bomba.
But Casson did not answer. He sat, muttering incoherently, and seemed so tired from his recent excitement that Bomba was afraid to press the matter further.
So he tried to calm the old man’s agitation and a little while later assisted him into his hammock where he almost immediately fell asleep.
Bomba himself got into his own hammock and tried to sleep. But although he was dead tired, he found himself for a long time unable to close his eyes.
He tossed restlessly about, his mind in a tumult of unanswered questions. Why was it that Casson had betrayed such intense excitement at the mention of Sobrinini’s name? Why had he referred to her as Nini? That sounded to Bomba like a pet name, implying long acquaintance and familiarity. Why did he indulge in that wild fantastic dance and singing?
One thing was reasonably certain. It was hopeless to count much on Casson. The disjointed words that his questioning had brought from the old man could not be pieced together so as to give him any reliable information.
So he must go to Sobrinini, must face all the dangers that would inevitably await him in that long journey to the Giant Cataract. The thoughtof abandoning his quest did not even occur to him. The urge to find out about his parentage was, if possible, stronger than it had been before. No difficulties could daunt or deter him.
With his determination firmly fixed in his mind, he fell at last into an uneasy slumber.
He found plenty of work awaiting him when he woke in the morning. In the first place, he had to replace the door that had been so nearly shattered by the puma, so that Casson and Pipina could have better protection, if exposed to similar dangers in the future.
He spent much time and labor on this, and when a stout door was at last completed, together with a heavy bar that could be dropped into place, he felt much easier in his mind.
Then there was the problem of provisioning the cabin during his coming absence. Though Casson and Pipina had had plenty while he was gone, their stock was now greatly depleted and needed replenishing. So he planned to spend several days in the jungle in order to bring them home plenty of meat. This would be cured by Pipina and would keep indefinitely.
It was bright and early one morning that he bade Casson and the woman farewell and set out for his hunting trip in the jungle.
So far as he could learn, the headhunters hadleft that district. He hoped they would stay away a long time, preferably forever.
He had not gone far before Kiki and Woowoo, the friendly parrots, fluttered from the trees and dropped one on each shoulder. A little later Doto joined him together with other monkeys, so that he was soon the center of a group of birds and animals, all competing for a word or a pat of the hand.
He talked to them, and they chattered back. Then he took out his harmonica and played for them, to their great delight. So much did the lonely boy enjoy converse with those who loved him that it was with reluctance he finally sent them away, so that he could go on with his hunting.
Two hours passed without anything coming in range of his weapons save small creatures that he disdained to notice. He was after larger game, preferably a tapir, a creature as large as a calf, whose meat was succulent and nourishing. A single one of these would furnish meat enough for a month.
So he turned his steps toward a large river where he knew these animals were likely to be found.
For a long time he had no luck. The sun reached its zenith and dropped down toward the western sky. There were plenty of tracks, but itwas mid-afternoon before he caught a glimpse of what he sought.
Then, coming out from a fringe of trees not far from the river’s edge, he saw a large tapir browsing on the bank.
It offered an easy target, and Bomba fitted an arrow to his bow. But unfortunately the wind was blowing toward the tapir and carried Bomba’s scent with it.
The animal looked up, saw Bomba, and without an instant’s hesitation plunged into the river.
Ordinarily that would have ended Bomba’s chances, for the tapir can swim for a long distance under water. His game, therefore, could easily have got beyond bowshot before it would have been compelled to come to the surface for air.
The boy gave an exclamation of vexation, which was checked, however, as his eyes, ranging up and down the river bank, caught sight of a canoe drawn up among some sedge grass near the shore. No doubt it belonged to a native who had left it there while he made a trip into the jungle.
Bomba ran to it, untied it, seized the paddle, and pushed out into the stream, following as nearly as he could guess the direction that the tapir had taken.
But a stern chase is a long chase, as Bomba soon found. When the tapir did come to the surface, it was a long way from where Bomba imagined itwould be, and before he had come within range of it the beast had gone under again.
But Bomba’s second guess proved a better one, and the next time the tapir came to the surface the boy was within ten feet of it.
Bomba dropped his paddle and seized his weapon. The bow twanged.
The arrow penetrated to the heart of the animal, and it died almost without a struggle.
Seizing a rope that lay in the bottom of the canoe, Bomba made a noose and threw it around the head and shoulders of the tapir, securing it before it could sink. Then he tied the other end of the rope to the canoe, and set out for the shore, towing his quarry behind him.
It was an arduous task, for the tapir weighed several hundred pounds, and Bomba made slow progress through the water. But his heart was exultant, for he had bagged his game. His day had not been fruitless.
His progress was checked suddenly, so suddenly that he was thrown on his back on the bottom of the canoe.
He scrambled to his feet and looked back, thinking that the body of the tapir might have caught on a snag. At what he saw his heart almost stopped beating.
It was no snag that had checked the progress of the canoe.
A monster alligator, the cayman of the Amazon region, was tugging at the tapir, from which it had already torn a piece of the flank.
Then, as Bomba looked, the water was broken in several places by the horrid snouts and hideous jaws of other caymen, that had smelled the blood of the tapir and were hastening to have their share of the feast.
Bomba’s first feeling was that of chagrin at losing his prey. But this gave way at once to an overpowering sense of his own danger.
Those great jaws tearing at the tapir were sure to upset the canoe. He must cut the rope.
He drew his machete, sprang to the stern, and commenced to hack madly at the rope. Before he could cut through a single strand, there was a terrific jerk, the canoe turned over, and Bomba was thrown into the river.
By this time the river was swarming with alligators!