Trembling, Ashati and Neram faced Bomba in that uncanny twilight. For a while they said nothing, but stood staring solemnly at each other.
It was Bomba who first broke the silence, and in the deep stillness of the shadow-filled jungle his voice sounded hollow in his own ears.
“The mad monkey! If he is alone, all will be well. But if there are others——”
“There are others,” interrupted Ashati. “One mad monkey needs but bite another, and that one too will become mad. It is in that way the evil spirits get possession of a flock of monkeys and set loose a thousand demons upon the jungle.”
“And the bite of one sets loose an evil spirit within ourselves, and we become even as the mad monkeys,” said Neram, his teeth chattering.
Bomba knew that he spoke truly. A kind of hydrophobia would sometimes be communicated by a snake-bitten monkey to its mates, and by them to any human being that came within their reach while the epidemic was raging. He had known of whole flocks of monkeys having been decimated before the terrible disease had run its course. And at such times there was no inhabitant of the jungle to be so much feared as a mad monkey.
“We cannot stay here,” said Bomba, looking about him. “We must go on. Perhaps we shall find shelter, a cave or an abandoned hut of a caboclo, where we can spend the night and leave this terrible place with the daylight.”
“Yes, we must go on,” agreed Ashati, and Neram nodded his head in agreement. “To stay here would be to bring that hurt monkey back for his revenge.”
“With good fortune we may escape the notice of others of the flock, since it is night and they may sleep,” suggested Neram.
“Then we must make no more noise than the foot of the jaguar,” warned Bomba, and, turning, he sped silently and swiftly from the place, followed closely by his companions.