“You here, too?” he said, as they squatted down beside him.
“Yes, master,” Ashati answered for both, while Neram nodded his head despondently.
“I am sorry,” said Bomba. “How did it come that you fell into the hands of Nascanora?”
“We were waiting for you near the bank of the river,” replied Ashati, “when we heard the march of feet. We hid in the jungle, hoping that the enemy would go past and not see us. But they had with them the man you caught and who told you the way to go to the island of Sobrinini. He led them to the place where you met him, and they beat the bushes till they found us.”
“And that man told Nascanora that I had gone to the island, and that is why they came there for me!” exclaimed Bomba.
“We should have killed the man while we had him on the ground,” stated Neram.
“No,” said Bomba. “But it would have been well to have bound him and left him with you until after Nascanora had passed by. Yet the man swore by his gods that he would not tell.”
“Nascanora has ways of making men speak,” put in Ashati significantly.
“His heart is as black as Jojasta’s was,” declared Neram, as though that summed up the total of human depravity. “He will torture us with fire and steel and then place our heads on the wigwams of his people.”
“I do not think so,” said Bomba. “Sobrinini told me that I would get away from him. And Bomba will not leave his friends Ashati and Neram behind.”