CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE SWIRL OF THE RAPIDS
The warning to Bomba came too late.
The tree had been undermined by the current, swelled by the recent rain. It had probably been tottering to its fall when Bomba climbed it, and his weight and his movements among the branches determined its fate.
Bomba was too high to jump. From such a distance he would surely have broken a limb and possibly his neck. He could only cling tightly to the bough on which he found himself and trust to chance.
Slowly the tree toppled, and then, with a tremendous splash, fell into the river. Its momentum carried it for a moment beneath the surface. Then it came up again with Bomba, drenched and sputtering, still holding tightly to the bough.
Fortunately he had been on the landward side of the tree, so that he was on the upper side as the tree swirled in the current.
Now, as his eyes cleared, he found that he was not alone. Ashati and Neram had been standing at the foot of the tree, and as its great roots tore loose from the ground they caught the two ex-slaves and flung them with the force of a catapult far out into the stream.
They had made for the tree as the nearest haven of safety, and now climbed up into the branches and drew as near as they could to Bomba.
The lad’s first impulse, when he found himself afloat, was to plunge into the river and swim for the bank, two hundred feet away. But even as the thought came into his mind he caught sight of the scaly body and horrid head of an alligator between him and the shore. The brute would have had him before he had gone twenty feet.
By this time the tree had been caught in the rapids, those terrible rapids of the River of Death whose power Bomba had already tested.
Had it been merely the trunk of a tree on which they found themselves, they would have been tossed off in a moment. But the great spreading branches kept it from turning over. Even at that, it was tossed about like a chip, and great waves broke over it, threatening at any moment to dislodge Bomba and his two companions, who had to hold on with all their might to prevent being swept away.
The horror of their position was intensified by the presence of a swarm of alligators, whose eyes had detected them and looked upon them as certain prey. The monsters swam about the tree on every side, at times dashing up from underneath with wide open jaws, in the hope of reaching them and pulling them down.
Ashati and Neram thought that their last hour had come, and Bomba was inclined to agree with them. The tree might stay there, buffeted back and forth, for days. They could not guide it. They dared not leave it.
From the contemplation of his own plight, his thoughts turned to those on shore. He was thankful that they were safe for the moment. Hondura was there to lead them, and the wily chief knew all the lore and craft of the jungle. With the start he had over his enemies and the probability that he would soon fall in with his own warriors coming to his rescue, Hondura would probably win through.
And Bomba knew that the old chief and his people would take good care of Casson. Good old Casson! Would he ever see the old man again, the lad wondered.
But a different and more welcome turn was given to his thoughts when Bomba discovered that the fierce tossing had ceased. The tree had been thrown from the rapids into smoother water, and was now drifting in the grip of a strong current in the same direction that Bomba’s canoe had taken two days before.
In a little while the point of land resembling a finger had been reached and passed, at so little distance that it would have been easy to swim to it, had it not been for the monster caymen that still kept pace with them.
Ashati and Neram had recovered their spirits, now that they had escaped the grip of the rapids.
“The Spirit of the Jungle is good!” exclaimed Ashati.
“It will not be long before we touch land somewhere,” prophesied Neram, hopefully.
“Yes,” said Bomba, as his eyes caught sight of Sobrinini’s domain looming up before them, “and the land will be Snake Island.”
At this name of ominous import a shudder ran through Bomba’s companions.
“The island of the witch woman!” exclaimed Ashati, making cabalistic signs to ward off evil.
“The woman with the evil eye which brings death to everyone on whom it falls!” said Neram with a shiver.
“Listen!” said Bomba. “You talk like foolish men. Is Bomba dead? Yet Sobrinini’s look fell upon Bomba. She is a wise woman. Did she not say that I would come back to Snake Island? And is Bomba not going back? I do not like her snakes. But she has done no evil to Bomba, and she will do no hurt to Bomba’s friends. And Ashati and Neram are my friends.”
The boy’s words brought some reassurance to his companions, but not enough to banish their fears wholly, and it was with great trepidation that they viewed the dreaded island as the tree drew ever nearer.
As for Bomba himself, he was almost glad at the accident which had at the time seemed so disastrous. He would not of his own accord have taken the time just now to visit Sobrinini again, eager as he was to renew his questioning. She had been on the very point of telling him what he wanted to know when Nascanora and his braves had broken in upon them. Perhaps this time he would be more fortunate.
He was immersed in these thoughts when to their ears came a wailing cry, so weird, so uncanny, so long drawn out, that it chilled their blood.
It came from the direction of the island, but, strain their eyes as they might, they could detect no human figure from whom the cry might have issued.
The sound was the signal for another outbreak of fear on the part of the ex-slaves. They were brave enough when facing human or animal foes, as they had shown in their combat with the jaguars, but when brought in contact with what they regarded as supernatural, their hearts melted within them.
They whimpered and cowered and glanced at the water, as though they were almost willing to take their chances with the alligators rather than approach the island they deemed accursed.
But they had drawn nearer now and they could detect an agitated, tumultuous group of figures on the shore.
The wailing cry came again, so near this time that Ashati and Neram nearly lost their grip on the boughs.
Then from out the fringe of trees that lined the shore shot a small canoe, paddled with frantic energy by a withered old woman, her straggling locks streaming behind her head, her face convulsed with fear.
“Sobrinini!” cried Bomba.