Then, suddenly, as the tidal wave tops all other waves, came a gigantic burst of wind that bore great trees before it as though they had been toys, bending them, breaking them, uprooting them, whirling them about as in a fantastic dance.
The force of that blast bore Bomba backward, pinning him against a great tree, with all the breath knocked out of his body. At the same time there came a ripping, tearing sound, a rumble and a roar that vied with the crash of the thunder.
Something struck Bomba—he had no time to see what—swept him from the ground as though he had been a feather, and dropped him many feet away with a force that drove all consciousness from him.
CHAPTER X
IN DEADLY PERIL
When Bomba slowly came to himself, fighting his way through unconsciousness, he did not realize at once the full significance of his plight.
First of all, he knew that he was drenching wet—probably it had been the beating of rain upon his face that had brought him back to consciousness.
The heavens had opened, and a deluge of rain had descended on the jungle, filling the dry beds of the ygapos as though by magic, overflowing the banks of the streams so that along their shores twin torrents raged.
Bomba had been swept by the branches of a falling tree into a deep hollow in the ground. The jungle abounded with these miniature pools, their bottoms only a muddy ooze at most times, the hollows only full after a rainfall or the overflowing of some stream in the vicinity.
Bomba wondered dully if he had been seriously injured, perhaps crushed, in the fall. There was no feeling in his body, and at first he was too dazed to test his strained muscles. He seemed to himself like a disembodied ghost.
But as the rain continued to fall upon his upturned face, fuller consciousness returned to him. He viewed his situation with more active alarm, tried to move his hands and feet and raise himself from his confined position.