On he went down the river, the canoe caught now by one current, now by another, sometimes dipping to one side at so sharp an angle that it seemed it must capsize, then righting itself and dancing on again over the frothing black water—a frail barrier between Bomba and destruction.
Once the canoe was caught in the iron grip of a cross-current and rushed at a furious speed toward the rocks that at that point lined the shore.
Bomba had need of all his strength. Putting all his force upon the paddle, he grazed the murderous rocks by the fraction of an inch, and slid lightly, gently into a stretch of calmer water.
The most dangerous part of his water journey was now over. All he had to do now was to avoid the rocks that at places pushed their heads above the water and the snags formed by parts of the trunks of trees that had grown on what was dry ground before the stream had extended its borders and swallowed them up.
But there were other “snags” too—living snags! The rough, gnarled bodies of great alligators that swam or floated lazily about, their backs just showing above the surface. Many were wholly or half asleep, others turned red and evil eyes on the solitary boatman as he sped by. Bomba, remembering his last experience with the ferocious brutes, shuddered to think of what would happen to him if by some evil chance his canoe should be overturned.
He found the island that was shaped like a finger, and worked his craft about the further end of it, heading upstream as the native had directed.
This was more tedious work than his progress downstream had been, but far less perilous. Bomba paddled with a will, his heart beating high with hope as he thought that every stroke was bringing him nearer to Sobrinini and the secret whose answer he was so eager to know.
If he shared to some extent the fears that had taken such strong possession of Ashati and Neram in regard to Sobrinini and her island of snakes, his eagerness to learn from the lips of the old witch woman those facts about his parentage that had been so long denied him drove all other feelings from his mind.
But as time passed and still each bend of the river failed to disclose any island answering to the description given by the native, Bomba became anxious and quickened the long, sweeping strokes of his paddle.
Could the native have deceived him? Was the fellow chuckling at that very moment at the way he had deceived the white boy who had waylaid him?