Two living human figures dropped from the branches like massive rubber balls, one taking Biff as a target, the other landing squarely on Mr. Brewster. In their hands, these silent, shadowy attackers carried thin ropes that they looped around the necks of their victims as they flattened them.
Biff heard his father give a short, gurgling cry. Then Biff was gasping as the cord tightened around his own neck. Next, his captor clapped a cloth to his face, and Biff was stifled by a strong, pungent odor that completely overpowered him. His head seemed to burst with stabs of flashing light that turned to utter blackness as his senses left him.
CHAPTER IV
The Safari Starts
Thrumm—thrumm—thrumm—thrumm—
As Biff awakened, the steady sound made him think that he was back on the plane above the Amazon. He opened his eyes expecting to see the yellow sea far below.
Instead, he saw black water streaming past the side of a boat, churning white as it scudded back into the distance. When he turned his head, he saw his father beside him.
They were propped against some boxes near the front of a long cabin cruiser, which had a permanent top stretched like a canopy over its large, open cockpit, making it ideal for tropical travel. But there was nothing ideal about Biff’s present plight.
Biff’s hands were bound in back of him by a rough cord that chafed his wrists. His ankles, too, were tightly tied. At a glance, Biff saw that his father was in a similar situation. The thin, tough rope around Mr. Brewster’s ankles looked like a tropical vine.
Biff tried to speak, but he found his lips too dry, his throat too parched. He caught a warning headshake from his father, and following the direction of Mr. Brewster’s gaze, Biff saw two chunky men, clad in baggy, sleeveless shirts and old khaki trousers cut off at the knees.
The pair were standing guard like patient watchdogs, looking for any move from the captives. They had black, straight hair and coppery skin; those features, plus their stony, immobile expressions marked them as Indians from the headwaters of the river, which, from its blackish color, could only be the Rio Negro.