Bomba hardly thought so. The man had spoken under the fear of death, if he spoke falsely. He knew how indefinite was the native idea of distance. He had heard Casson say in the old days that when a caboclo said a place was “not far” he might mean just beyond a bend of the road or twenty miles away.
Bomba’s first uneasiness came with the lengthening of the evening shadows. Even if the native had not misled him and his course was the true one, Bomba did not relish the idea of approaching the island in the dark, or even at early dusk.
But even as these thoughts troubled his mind and the shadows grew deeper, he rounded another bend of the river and saw before him the object of his search. He could not be mistaken. The position and shape of the island were exactly as the native had described them.
As Bomba, with quickened pulse, drove his canoe among the heavy rushes that half concealed the land from anyone upon the river, the sound of singing came to him.
It was not one of the tribal songs of natives with which he was familiar.
It was singing such as he had never heard before, and the voice of the singer was so thin and eerie and unearthly in that solitary spot that Bomba felt the hair rise on his scalp.
“Sobrinini!” muttered the lad, and with a trembling hand parted the bushes from before his eyes.
CHAPTER XVII
AMID WRITHING SERPENTS
The sight that met Bomba’s eyes was horrible beyond anything he had ever seen or imagined.
At the extreme end of the island, in mud that oozed about her ankles, an old withered crone was performing a weird dance, singing to herself as she did so in a language that was strange to Bomba.