Bomba watched its progress with the same sense of helplessness he had sometimes felt in nightmares. Death was separated from him only by feet. A few moments more and the feet would be reduced to inches.
Oh, for his bow and arrows! Oh, for the “fire stick” that would have so quickly turned the tables on his foe! They would have given him at least a chance for life. Now his chance was not one in a hundred.
The jaguar crept out still farther upon its branch, ears flattened back against its head, cruel teeth showing in a snarl of fury.
Bomba’s fingers tensed about the handle of the machete and he shouted, hoping to disconcert the animal and perhaps make it lose its balance.
But this availed nothing. At the sound of Bomba’s voice the great beast gave a snarl of rage and lifted its huge paw, armed with terrible claws that could strip the flesh from the lad’s body.
Bomba met the vicious stroke halfway with a slash of his machete. The jaguar howled with rage and pain. The cut maddened it. With a ferocious growl it crouched to spring.
It was then that what seemed a miracle happened!
Bomba, in whose heart despair had entered and who thought that this was his last moment on earth, saw the body of the ferocious beast leap suddenly into the air, grasp wildly at anything that promised a foothold, and then plunge downward through the branches to the ground.
“Help has come!” thought Bomba, scarcely able to believe his eyes and almost dropping the dripping machete from his hand in the agitation that possessed him. But from where and from whom?
He heard expressions of jubilation, and two dark-skinned men appeared beneath the tree.