CHAPTER XIFEROCIOUS FOES
ButDeath had not yet claimed Bomba for his own.
The water broke and the lad’s face appeared, ghastly drawn and white. He was not yet conquered. He would make one more supreme effort.
He drew the blessed air into his lungs. The veins stood out on his neck, the great muscles in his shoulders were ridged like whipcords as he strained to throw the last of the imprisoning branches from his chest.
If it had not been for his awful desperation, even his great strength would not have been equal to the task. As it was, there was a ripping, tearing sound, and slowly the grip of the branches relaxed, slowly Bomba forced himself upward, his face suffused with blood, his breath coming in short gasps of agony.
Then a great joy flooded his heart. The mass upon his chest yielded. He sat upright in the pool. Now he could use his shoulders as well ashis arms to free the lower part of his body. And he had escaped those greedy waters that a moment before had been sucking at his breath.
He rested for a while, for the effort had exhausted him; rested, while he drew great draughts of air into his lungs, luxuriously expanding the chest that had been so cruelly imprisoned.
He flexed his arms and felt his body carefully to make sure no bones were broken.
Everything all right there! But his legs were yet held captive, and there was no feeling in them. They might be broken, crushed. He could not tell.
He could work faster now, for the strength of his back and shoulders went into the quick, sharp strokes of the machete. One by one the boughs yielded to his vigorous attacks and were thrown aside.
The water was still creeping upward in the pool, but it would be a long time now before it could reach the danger point. The rain was slackening too.
Stealing a precious moment to glance upward at the sky, Bomba saw that the clouds were breaking and the sun beginning faintly to shine through. The wind had sunk to a gentle murmuring, and the last rumblings of the thunder were dying away in the distance.
Now a foot and leg were free. With moreheart, Bomba worked at the other, and soon cleared away the last of the branches.
He could see more clearly now what had happened to him. A great tree, torn loose by that last cyclonic burst of wind, had fallen, sweeping him along with its branches and imprisoning him in the pool.
Lucky for him, thought Bomba, that the boughs had caught him instead of the trunk. In the latter case, there would have been no escape. His life would have paid toll to the storm.
He felt of his legs, raising them tentatively and working them till the blood flowed back in their veins again. To his joy, he established the fact that no bones were broken, though ligaments and muscles had been cruelly strained.
Trying to drag himself to his feet, Bomba found that he could not bear his weight upon them, and was forced at last to drag himself on hands and knees out of the pool and onto higher ground.
The jungle was friendly again. Far above, the sun streamed out through broken clouds. Monkeys chattered, parrots screamed, and the timid small creatures once more ventured out from their hiding places.
In Bomba’s heart was a great thankfulness for his escape. Yet at the same time he bemoaned the hurt to his legs, since he could not hasten as quicklyas he had hoped to the rescue of Casson, Pipina and little Pirah.
He dragged himself to his feet, slowly and painfully, resting half his weight against the trunk of a tree. He looked down at his legs and found they were torn and bleeding in a dozen places from contact with the thorny twigs. The rest of his body was badly bruised and cut. He would rub himself with river mud, his sovereign remedy, as soon as he could walk.
It took some time for the strength to return to his bruised limbs. And even when he could move and bear his weight upon them, his gait was no more than an uncertain wobble.
He was furiously impatient of this infirmity. In this condition he was as helpless as a wounded tapir. How easily he could become the prey of any beast of the jungle that might happen to come across him!
Bomba shifted his machete from his right hand to the left and felt for his bow and arrows. They were gone, torn from him, probably, as the tree fell upon him.
This was a serious loss, and his heart was filled with consternation. He made a careful search of the vicinity, but could find no trace of them.
It was another illustration of the saying that misfortunes never come singly. First he had been robbed of his revolver. Now he had lost his bowand arrows. Only his machete was left to meet the manifold dangers by which he was surrounded and for use against the wily Nascanora and his braves. He wondered grimly how long even his machete would be left to him.
But he had to make the best of it. Perhaps he would meet some friendly natives who would trade him a bow and some arrows for the meat of the peccary. If not, he would have to shape the weapons himself with his knife, if he could find suitable material.
Meanwhile he had returned to the pool. There, scooping up great handfuls of mud, he rubbed it over his torn and bleeding flesh. Then, impatient of further delay, he started off through the jungle in the direction of the Giant Cataract.
He realized at last that he was very hungry, and, thinking that his weakness was partly due to this, he took from his pouch some of the roasted meat and ate with a relish.
He felt refreshed after this, and proceeded at a much better pace. His limbs still pained him greatly, and he was forced to stop at frequent intervals to rest. But he was getting stronger, and his confidence was returning to him.
His chief concern was the loss of his weapons. At any moment he might be called upon to use them in defence. His knife, to be sure, was a terrible weapon at close quarters. Even at somedistance he could hurl it with great precision, as he had on the night when he had sent it whizzing through the air and buried it in the throat of the jaguar that was leaping at the white rubber hunters.
But he saved that as a last resort. His main dependence had been the bow and arrows, that might enable him to make a stand even if attacked by several enemies at the same time.
They were essential, too, in hunting game for food. But that thought just now gave him little concern. He could always find jaboty eggs in the jungle or catch fish in any stream he might encounter. And at present he was well supplied with dried meat.
If he had been superstitious, he might have thought that a malign fate had been following him ever since he set out on his journey. There was the loss of his revolver and harmonica, the enforced return to the hut when Hondura’s braves had come upon him, the further loss of his bow and arrows, his submergence in the pool when the tree had trapped him.
A native would have interpreted these things as evidence that the gods frowned on his undertaking, and would have turned back. But they only increased Bomba’s determination to play the game out to the end. He thrived on opposition. What were obstacles for but to be surmounted?
He traveled on for perhaps an hour. Then he came to a clearing among the dense underbrush. He welcomed this as enabling him to make more rapid progress.
Suddenly he stepped back, startled. There before him, grazing placidly beneath the heat of the tropical sun, was a great drove of peccaries, the fierce wild pigs of the jungle.
Ordinarily, Bomba would have been able to circle that grazing drove so silently and swiftly that before they had caught the scent of human presence he would have been far beyond their reach.
And that was the most intense desire in Bomba’s mind at that moment! He had seen natives after the peccaries had finished with them, and shuddered at the sight. If they should get at him in the open, his life would not be worth a moment’s purchase. This would be true even if he had his weapons. How much more certain would be his fate under present conditions!
But Bomba now had not as full control of his limbs as usual, and he made a slight noise as he stepped back into the forest fringe.
The peccary nearest him lifted up its wicked, blunt-nosed head and sniffed the air. Then, with a snort of rage, it turned in the direction of the sound and started straight toward Bomba. Therest of the drove automatically followed their leader.
There was only one thing to be done. Quick as thought, Bomba leaped for the limb of the tree nearest him, swinging his body clear of the ground just as the first peccary reached the spot where he had been. The others followed with such headlong speed that many of them struck against the trunk of the tree and shook it with their impact.
Not a second too soon, thought Bomba, as he swung himself from branch to branch until he reached a fork, where he ensconced himself.
Below him at the base of the tree the peccaries were acting like things demented. They ran around and around in circles, snorting viciously and stumbling over one another in their fury.
Bomba was thankful that pigs were not like monkeys or jaguars, who were as much at home among the branches of a tree as they were on the ground.
The peccaries could not climb, and so were powerless to vent their rage on Bomba. He was safe for the present and could smile grimly as they gnashed their tusks, those terrible tusks that were like so many knives and which could so easily slash him to bits.
The boy was filled with resentment against these ferocious creatures. They could not harm him, but they were delaying him in his pursuit ofNascanora. For all he knew, they might keep him treed for days. And in the meantime what might be happening to the captives? His heart was wrung with anguish at the thought.
An hour passed—another. Then the fury of the peccaries began to abate. They were short-sighted, and used to holding their heads down as no longer gazing at their enemy, they soon forgot they grazed. It tired them to look up. And, his existence. With the stupid peccary, out of sight was out of mind.
They began to drift away at last, moving aimlessly as though they had forgotten all about Bomba and the reason for their ferocious attack.
But Bomba’s forced rest had brought renewed strength to his limbs, and he felt more like his own strong, active self.
Still the lad did not dare start his descent until all of them had vanished from sight. Then, slowly and cautiously, making as little noise as possible, he slipped downward through the heavy branches.
He had reached the lowest bough when something bade him pause.
Something was watching him from the jungle, something that he could not see but could feel!