CHAPTER XIIITHE MAD MONKEY
Ashatiand Neram dropped to their knees before Bomba, clasping his hands and bowing their black heads before him. Neram, bending lower, took one of Bomba’s sandaled feet and placed it on his neck as a sign that he was slave and Bomba master.
The heart of the lonely boy swelled at this sign of gratitude and affection. He stooped and raised the kneeling men, and made them stand on their feet before him.
“You have saved Bomba’s life,” he said with deep feeling. “If you had not come when you did the jaguars would have killed him. Bomba will not forget.”
“Ashati and Neram would have been nothing now but bones buried in the heart of the Moving Mountain if you had not come to their help,” replied Ashati, who seemed to be the spokesman for the two. “You saved them from death, and freed them from the cruel yoke of Jojasta, the medicine man. Ashati and Neram have no masterbut Bomba, and will go anywhere in the jungle at the side of Bomba as his slave. Their lives belong to Bomba.”
“You shall go with me wherever I go,” replied Bomba. “But you shall go as my friends and not as my slaves. Bomba has nothing to offer you but friendship. If you will take that and go with him, he will be glad.”
So it was settled, and with many more expressions of gratitude and devotion on the part of the ex-slaves of Jojasta, Bomba and the two men set to work to skin and quarter one of the dead jaguars that had unwittingly furnished them a feast.
While engaged in this and the building of a fire for the roasting of the best portions of the meat, Ashati and Neram imparted to Bomba news that he was anxious to hear.
In their wanderings they had noted the bands of Nascanora and his half-brother, Tocarora, heading in the direction of the Giant Cataract. This had been only two days before and not far from the place where they were now standing. From their hiding place in the brush, the slaves had seen that each party had with it a number of captives.
“Was there a white man among them?” asked Bomba eagerly.
“Yes,” replied Ashati; “an old man, very thin and with white hair.”
Bomba’s heart leaped. Casson then was still alive! He had not succumbed to the hardships of the journey.
“Can you take Bomba to the place where you saw them and point out to him the way they were going?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Ashati. “But they must be a long way from there now, for they were going fast. And they kept looking behind them as though they thought men were coming after them.”
The news set Bomba on fire with impatience to be off. Under his urging and example, the roasting of the meat was swiftly completed. He divided the food equally between the three of them. Whatever might happen to them in the future, it was certain that they would not starve.
After they had got fairly started, with Ashati as guide, toward the spot where the path of the slaves had crossed that of the savages, Bomba narrated to his companions some of his experiences since he had left the hut of Pipina.
When he came to the part that concerned the loss of his bow and arrows, Ashati insisted that the boy should take his and that he, Ashati, could do very well with his hunting knife. Besides, he would make another set of weapons at their first resting place.
Bomba would have refused, but seeing that hecould not do so without hurting the feelings of the devoted fellow, at last accepted the gift.
“It was an arrow from that bow that found the heart of the jaguar that would have sunk its claws in your flesh and ripped it from the bones,” said Ashati, as he handed it over.
“Bomba has not asked you yet how it was you came just in time to save his life,” said the lad.
“We hunted Bomba day and night,” Ashati replied. “Our lives were yours, for you had saved them. We came on your trail in the jungle, and followed after. Ashati saw you in the tree as the jaguar lifted its paw to strike. Then Ashati prayed to the Spirit of the Jungle and shot his arrow. The Spirit made it go straight, and the jaguar died.”
It was now late afternoon, and Bomba and his followers had not traveled far before the swift tropic night descended on them and forced them to rest for the night.
Bomba chafed at the necessity, though he himself was almost exhausted in mind and body by the stirring events of the day that had taxed both to the utmost.
He was up with the dawn, however, and, rousing Ashati and Neram, summoned them to share his hasty breakfast and start on the day’s journey. They obeyed with willingness, though no more than half awake. Their bodies wastedand their strength sapped by years of deprivation and torments at the hands of Jojasta could not throw off the fatigue as readily as the healthy jungle lad, whose veins were pulsing with vitality.
But Bomba’s quest of Nascanora could not wait. Delay, however slight, might result in the death of his friends, if indeed they still lived. If Ashati and Neram could travel at Bomba’s pace, he would be glad to have them with him, for they were companions in his loneliness and allies in case of danger.
But if they could not keep up with him, he would have to go on ahead, leaving them to join him when they could.
But once roused, they seemed as eager as himself to continue the journey. Even the prospect of an encounter with Nascanora and his braves did not deter them, as long as they were under Bomba’s leadership. What they had already seen of him had led them to attribute to him almost magical power. Their anxiety to please and serve the lad in every way they could deeply touched Bomba, in whose life loyalty and service of any kind had been so sadly lacking.
They stamped out the embers of the fire they had built to keep off the jungle beasts during the night, ate of their supply of jaguar meat, and struck onward through the forest in the direction of the Giant Cataract.
The sun rose higher, and with full daylight came a fresh burst of speed on the part of Bomba. If Ashati and Neram found it hard to keep up with him, they did not murmur. They would have suffered any hardship rather than be left behind by him whom they had chosen as their master.
They traveled all day without meeting with any unusual adventure, pausing only briefly at noon to roast some jaboty eggs they found in the forest that gave a welcome variation to their meat diet.
The shadows were beginning to gather when they came at last to the spot where the paths of the slaves and the two parties of headhunters had crossed.
The trail of the Indians was cold, but it was not difficult for one so versed in woodcraft as Bomba to pick it up. There was still a little daylight remaining, and he persisted in utilizing every moment of it to gain another mile or two before he called a halt for the night.
On and on they went, although by this time they were nearly stumbling with fatigue. They were penetrating a part of the jungle that was new to Bomba. Pools, swelled by the recent rain, were frequent, some of them so deep that it was necessary to cross them by notched trunks of trees, the crude bridges of the jungle.
Crossing one of these, Ashati, wearied almost to fainting, stumbled and would have fallen hadnot Bomba seized him and dragged him to the safety of the further bank.
They had gone but a few yards farther, Bomba’s eyes straining to detect the faintly marked trail, when there was a thud, and on the ground before them, directly in their path, appeared a figure so grotesque in form and ugly in face that Bomba took a startled step backward and the two slaves fell to the ground in a fit of shuddering terror.
“The mad monkey!” chattered Neram, and then, as the creature advanced on them, uttered an ear-piercing shriek.
Gibbering and mouthing ferociously, froth slavering from its jaws, the huge ape sprang toward Bomba and the cowering slaves.
Bomba was paralyzed at first by the hideous appearance of the beast and infected to some degree with the superstitious terror that animated Ashati and Neram. He seemed bereft of the power of movement.
Then gathering together his forces, he sprang backward swiftly and fitted an arrow to his bow.