At intervals there was a sound like a rattle, as though the creature had encountered some obstacle that had aroused its irritation and was taking this way of showing it.
Bomba knew that sound, and his heart skipped a beat.
A snake was coming toward him, the deadly jaracara, the South American rattlesnake, the slightest puncture of whose fangs meant death!
What should he do? He could not retreat. If he shot the reptile the noise would bring his human enemies surging down upon him. If he attempted to use his machete, the snake’s stroke would be quicker than Bomba’s blow, and the creature’s fangs would be imbedded in his flesh.
While these thoughts were racing through his mind he saw the loathsome body and the triangular head of the jaracara come into view not ten feet away.
At the same moment the reptile caught sight of Bomba. It stopped short in surprise. Then its eyes snapped with malignant fury. Like a flash it threw its body into a coil and upreared its head to strike.
But in that short moment an inspiration had come to Bomba. He grasped a long stick and prodded its coils. Instantly the snake struck at the stick. Before it could recover, Bomba had pounced upon it and his sinewy hands had closed upon its throat.
Then ensued a terrific struggle, with the death of one or perhaps both of the combatants as the only possible outcome—a struggle all the more terrible for Bomba, because it had to be carried on in silence.
And while he holds that slippery throat with the clutch of desperation, as the snake twists and writhes and tries to bite, it may be well, for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series, to tell who Bomba was and what had been his adventures up to the time at which this story opens.
From his earliest childhood, as far as his memory went, Bomba had lived with Cody Casson in the jungle. The latter was a naturalist, who had withdrawn from civilization and settled in a little cabin in the remotest part of the Amazonian region. He was moody and abstracted, and often went for days at a time without speaking except in monosyllables.