CHAPTER XIIA TERRIFIC BATTLE
Buteven 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 in a life and death grapple.
The thud of the collision had come just as Bomba’s bow twanged. The arrow would have found its mark unerringly if the body of the jaguar had not been thrown out of the line of its flight.
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 come to his help.”
It was a titanic struggle that was going on before his eyes. Both brutes were among the largest and most powerful of their kind. They rolled over and over, tearing from each other great strips of hide, fighting with teeth and claws, each trying to get a death hold on the other’s throat.
Bomba drew as near the antagonists as he could, circling about in an attempt to find a target in the jaguar. But the two beasts were whirling about like a giant pinwheel, first one on top and then the other, and Bomba did not dare use either arrow or machete for fear that he would wound or kill Polulu instead of the jaguar.
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 same time a claw of its hindleg tore a strip of the puma’s hide. Polulu turned upon his second assailant and gave him a blow with his great paw that loosened the brute’s hold and sent him rolling six feet away. But the jaguar was up in an instant and returned to the attack. At the same time the first jaguar, inspiredto fresh efforts by the coming of its ally, redoubled the ferocity of its fighting.
The odds were too great. Polulu could have conquered either jaguar alone with comparative ease. But with two attacking him at once, he had no chance.
Such rage swept over Bomba as he had scarcely ever known before. With a yell of encouragement to Polulu, he leaped into the fray, throwing caution to the winds. His only thought was that Polulu, his friend, must not die.
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 earthquake, Bomba was hurled from the back of the jaguar upon the ground. With a roar that echoed and re-echoed through the jungle, the stricken brute rose on its hind legs, pawed the air blindly for a moment, and then fell.
Bomba lifted himself, half-dazed, on his elbow and stared at the great cat, a moment before so terrible, now stretched out prone and inert.
Then the lad scrambled to his feet, regained his machete, which had been knocked from hishand 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 moments more the fight was over.
Polulu rose to his feet and sent a roar of triumph through the jungle. But he staggered as he did it, and then he sank down on the ground, panting, too spent and exhausted even to lick his wounds.
Bomba was beside him on the instant, caressing the great brute’s shaggy head. The animal’s eyes, of late so furious, were now soft with affection, and it tried weakly to lick Bomba’s hand.
“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. Bomba had been stirred to pity by the animal’s plight, had released it from the trap, bound up the broken leg, and nursed the puma, bringing it food and drink until the leg had mended. The brute had sensed his pity and goodness of heart and hadbeen intensely grateful. By the time it was well again it had grown as fond of Bomba as a dog is of its master.
Again and again they had met in the jungle, and on several occasions, in times of great stress, Bomba had owed his life to the puma’s devotion. And now he was once more in the animal’s debt.
Bomba saw that the animal was bleeding from a dozen wounds, many of them deep, from which the blood was flowing freely. The lad ran to a stream that rippled through the brushwood not far off and brought back water with which he washed the wounds. Then he covered them with river mud, the universal and healing ointment of the jungle. Polulu let him do as he would, purring his gratitude and rubbing his head against the lad’s body.
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 exactly the kind of food that would please an epicure, but it was eatable, and the opportunity could not be neglected. The lad cut great steaks from the bodies, built a fire and roasted them. Then he ateto repletion and stored what was left away in his pouch for future needs. By this time Polulu was so far recovered that he was ready to join in the feast.
Bomba patted the great brute on the head and intertwined his fingers in the shaggy mane.
“Bomba is glad that Polulu is strong again,” the lad said. “Now Polulu can go back to his mate and tell her how he came to the help of Bomba when the jaguars were hungry for his life. If he had lost his life, Bomba would have grieved for Polulu. Bomba will never forget his friend. But now Bomba must go on, for he has lost much time.”
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 heavy. No, Polulu cannot go. But Bomba will come back, if it is so decreed, and then he will talk and feast with Polulu again.”
He pointed back in the direction from which Polulu had come, and the brute reluctantly obeyed. Bomba listened until the padding of the animal’s feet had died away and then once moreturned his face and steps toward Jaguar Island.
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 and his strange powers.
The forces of the jungle would now be unleashed upon him, and in the matter of mere physical strength they were stronger than he was. From now on he must pit his wit against brute strength, trusting to his keen brain to win against odds that would otherwise be overwhelming.
So, though he stepped swiftly, he stepped softly, constantly on the alert, bow and arrows, machete and revolver ready at hand in case of need, eyes searching out every moving shadow in the underbrush.
Before long his supply of meat was exhausted, for he had had to eat freely to maintain his strength. He hated to devote any more time to hunting than he had to, for it meant that much delay in his journey. Berries and nuts and turtle eggs helped to eke out his supplies, but he needed meat.
Luck was with him, for he killed a tapir, and this time he cured enough of the meat to lasthim, 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 the half-breed he would be able to get from him the knowledge he craved, provided that Japazy had that knowledge. The possibility of a hostile reception occurred to him at times, but he dismissed it promptly. Why should such a natural and simple request arouse Japazy’s ire? Jojasta had told him something. Sobrinini had told him more. Why should not Japazy scatter the last shred of mystery that hung about the secret of his birth?
Musing thus, he was pushing his way through an unusually thick part of the jungle late on the third afternoon after he had left Polulu when he stopped abruptly.
A scream had halted him, a man’s scream, the scream of one in mortal agony!