Bomba the jungle boy

A thrill of terror ran through Bomba.

He knew in an instant what had happened. A great boa, lying in wait for whatever living thing might pass beneath the tree, had darted down upon him. The coils of the great snake were tightening upon him inexorably.

For a moment he gave himself up for lost. And lost he inevitably would have been, had the snake retained the grip of its tail upon the bough. This it was that gave it the purchase required for squeezing its prey to death.

But the bough was slippery from the recent rain, and the fury of the reptile’s sudden dart tore the tail loose from the point of support.

The great body fell with a thud. The coils did not relax. But on the other hand they could not tighten until the snake, lashing wildly about, could find some stump or tree to encircle with its tail and use it as a lever.

Bomba felt as though his lungs were bursting, his ribs cracking. He expected every second to be crushed into a shapeless mass.

The snake had wound about his body, but the boy’s arms remained free. Desperately he felt for his machete. He drew it forth from its sheath with his right hand and slashed furiously at the enfolding coils.

For a moment the iron bands seemed to press all the closer. The infuriated reptile raised its horrid head and struck at the boy’s neck. Bomba dodged, and the fangs buried themselves in his shoulder.

Again and again Bomba lashed out frantically with his knife. Each time the weapon found its mark. Bomba could feel that the coils were relaxing slightly.

Once more the terrible head was raised high in the air for another blow. And at that instant a lucky slash went deep and severed the spinal cord.

The threatened blow never descended. The head wavered and fell. Bomba grasped it with his left hand and, summoning all his strength, struck the reptile in the throat, completely severing the head from the body. The coils unwound and fell in a heap at the boy’s feet.

Bomba threw the head from him with a sharp exclamation of disgust, mingled with relief, and stepped quickly to one side to escape the flailing of the writhing, twisting body of the headless boa constrictor.

He had been close to death. Only the slipping of the snake’s tail from the slippery bough had saved him. His brave heart alone would not have availed.

With a shudder of repulsion he examined his foe, after the thrashing had subsided and the great snake lay quiet.

Bomba had seen much larger snakes, but this was quite large enough, the boy reflected, as he rubbed his chest, bruised and sore from the pressure of the folds. The reptile was about twelve feet long and as thick as Bomba’s leg.

The horrible head, lying a little distance from the body, still gaped at him, though the malignant glitter of the eyes had been glazed by death. Bomba shuddered as he thought how nearly those awful fangs had been imbedded in his throat. But they had sunk into his shoulder.

Now, as well as he could, he examined the wound. It was causing him severe pain, but no apprehension. He knew that the boa constrictor carried no poison in its jaws. Its terrible crushing power was its main reliance. His shoulder would be sore for a few days, and that was all. He cleansed the wound with water from a pool, and then wiped his bloody hunting knife on a wad of leaves.

“You did well,” he said aloud, addressing his trusty weapon as he thrust it back into his girdle of cloth. “You have served Bomba many times, but never better than this.”

Once more he went on his way, but, warned by his adventure, his eyes scanned the trees above him as carefully as they did the ground before him.

Before long he had passed through the dreary ygapo and heard in the distance the musical tinkle of a waterfall. It was a sound that made his heart leap with pleasure. Again and again he had viewed the fall, entranced, as the spray-crested torrent dashed over the lip of the cliff into the whirling vortex of water beneath that formed the first of the series of great rapids rushing onward to the river.

Bomba loved the waterfall. It spoke to him in a vague and mystic way of forces unchained. As he came now in full sight of it, there was something in the power and wild beauty of the rushing waters that struck an answering chord in his soul, causing his blood to run more swiftly and making his eyes kindle with delight.

What made him feel that way? Bomba brooded over this, as he brooded over many of the strange thoughts and emotions that puzzled him.

He wondered if the caboclos felt as he did about this magnificent cascade. He remembered that he had seen one of them come out from the jungle and stand for a moment above the rushing waters, looking down upon them.

There had been no change in the expression of the caboclo. He had not seemed to be drinking in the beauty of it all. If the man had loved the waterfall as Bomba did, his face would have lighted up and his eyes would have laughed, as Bomba had seen his own laugh one day when he had suddenly seen his face reflected in the pellucid waters of a lovely pool.

Bomba had not known himself then. He had started back from the image in the pool as though from some mysterious thing hiding beneath the surface of the water. But when, gaining courage, he had again peered over the rim, his face looked back at him, and he knew it was his own.

But the face now was puzzled and solemn. It had lost the first laughing look, the look of some one on whom a radiant vision has burst. He tried again to laugh, but it was not the same. The laughter was forced. What a strange changing mixture of emotions he possessed! He was something, then, besides form and features. There was more in him than he could touch and see. Could it be perhaps because he had something that the white men had called a soul? What was this soul?

Many, many lonely hours Bomba had spent wondering about this.

Why did he never see that look upon the face of Casson? Why did the faces of the natives always wear to Bomba the same dull and stupid look, as dull and stupid, Bomba thought, and often more so, than the faces of his jungle friends? Why were the faces of the Indians always the same, except when they darkened and grew fierce and stern? Why did beauty not appeal to them as it did to him?

Bomba felt sure that the native tribes who lived within sight and sound of the great cascade, who could feast their eyes on it whenever they would, did not love it as he did. They thought of it only as the abode of spirits, some good, most of them bad, and believed that the evil spirits walked at night. During the dark hours they remained close within the circle of the maloca, where the night fires burned bright.

Bomba did not believe that evil spirits dwelt in the waterfall. It was beautiful, and to Bomba beautiful things were good.

Why did they feel so differently from him? Was it because they did not have souls? He dismissed this thought as improbable. But perhaps their souls were asleep. Ah, that must be it! They were asleep!

But his was awake. At least it was waking. Perhaps that was because he was white. The thought gave him a thrill. Now he was sure that he had found the truth. The natives’ souls were asleep. The white men’s souls were awake. And he was white!

He had been so absorbed in his broodings that he had become almost oblivious of the passage of time. A glance at the sun startled him. He must hurry.

With a last lingering look at the beautiful cascade and a mental resolve to return to it soon, he struck off at a tangent into the jungle, gliding along silently and swiftly, eager to make up for the time he had spent in dreaming.

He reproached himself for having lingered. Why had he forgotten for the moment Casson, poor old helpless Casson, left alone in the hut, an easy prey to the stealthy head-hunters if they should succeed in ferreting out his location.

He was hurrying along when he suddenly stopped short.

In his path were the freshly made tracks of a jaguar!