For a long time his search was unsuccessful. At last his eyes brightened, for they rested on a little strip of cloth fluttering on a thorn bush. He examined it carefully and recognized it as a strip torn from a loose dress such as the Indian women wear. Probably it was torn from Pipina’s garment.
This was something, but not enough. He must find a second strip, if possible, and the line formed by the two would give him the direction in which the party were traveling.
Before long his eager search was rewarded. Now he could shape his course, and he hurried forward with redoubled speed.
The bits of cloth also told the jungle boy another story. The fact that they had been torn off at all showed that the savages had been hurrying their captives along at great speed, and so roughly that they took no care to avoid the thorn bushes that tore the clothes and probably the skin.
Bomba’s heart burned within him as he pictured poor, weak Casson driven along, perhaps flogged to make him hasten. How long could he endure such treatment in his feeble condition? Perhaps even now he had succumbed to the hardships of the journey! Bomba gritted his teeth and his eyes flamed with fury.
He had not gone far when his jungle instinct warned him of danger in the immediate vicinity. Motions as vague as shadows, faint rustlings that could not have been detected by an untrained ear, told him that something or someone was trailing him, keeping step with him, moving as swiftly and silently as he. From being the hunter, he had become the hunted.
When Bomba paused the slight rustlings stopped. When he moved on they were resumed.
Still he continued on his way. Whether his pursuer were beast or human he could not tell. But the jungle lad knew that, whether beast or human, the surest way to provoke attack was to betray a knowledge of his danger.
To keep on would be at least to delay attack and perhaps derange the plans of his pursuer. But when the attack at last came—if it should come—he would be ready.
Suddenly he became conscious that he was encircled. The faint sound, which had been behind him, was echoed now on the right and the left and in the front. His enemies, whoever they were, were closing in upon him.