One of the youths who had just returned stepped into the circle.
“These many days we searched the forest and the sandbars, but found nothing,” he said impressively. “So we returned.”
A hush had fallen upon all. Even the women and children peeping out of the palm-leaf hovels stopped their chatter and looked with wide-open eyes.
“Tumwah, send the rain-clouds here”
“Build the fires!” the headman ordered. “I suspected treachery from the very beginning.”
“Wait!” the hunter, continued. “This morning as we rounded the bend in the river where the banks are set close together and where the water roars and boils in its haste to pass the terrible place so it may join the peaceful stretches below, Tupi’s sharp eyes saw the form of a vulture in the sky. We watched the evil bird and soon discovered other black specks circling above the gorge. It was there we found the proof, on a rock in the midst of the raging water; a black tiger of such great size that it could be none other than the Black Phantom. The broken shaft of an arrow was still in its shoulder. We could not swim to the rock; no creature of earth could conquer that angry flood. But there it is so that all may see yet none may reach except only the loathsome vultures.”
That night there was a feast in the Patocos’ village. Turtles had been brought from the corrals and the women made fresh cassava bread. And long into the night the sound of the celebration rang through the black forest as war drums boomed and the voices of singers chanted the praises of the mighty hunter who was among them.
Not until the sharp report of thunder followed by a drenching rain drove the revellers to shelter did the festivities end.