CHAPTER I
THE SUDDEN ATTACK
Bomba made his way as silently as a panther through the jungle.
For that jungle abounded in enemies, as the boy had had occasion to know. At any moment a boa constrictor might drop like a flash from a tree above and seek to enfold him in its crushing coils. A turn of the trail might bring him face to face with a crouching jaguar. Or a cooanaradi, deadliest of all venomous snakes, might launch itself from the underbrush and inject its poison into his veins.
There were human foes, too, against whom Bomba had to be on his guard. With the natives who dwelt in that part of the jungle he was on comparatively friendly terms, though he never mingled with them on a footing of intimacy.
But from time to time the dreaded headhunters from the faraway region of the Giant Cataract invaded this district in search of the hideous trophies which their name implied wherewith to adorn their wigwams.
Their coming was a signal for the native inhabitants to flee, carrying along with them their children and scanty household belongings. The headhunters were cruel and ruthless, and death and destruction followed in their wake.
Bomba had seen signs of them that very morning, and he had no desire for a closer acquaintance. On two previous occasions, he and Casson, the aged naturalist with whom he lived, had been sought out by these dreaded savages and had narrowly escaped with their lives. A third time they might not be so fortunate.
“And as I have only one head, I am exceedingly anxious to keep it on my shoulders,” the boy had told Casson.
So it was with extreme caution that Bomba threaded his way through the jungle, his eyes darting from right to left, plumbing the recesses of every thicket, piercing the foliage of every tree. With him eternal vigilance was the price, not only of liberty, but of life itself.
There was a sudden rustling in the leaves of a giant dolado tree. Bomba halted instantly, drew an arrow from his belt and fitted it to the string of his bow.