Bomba the jungle boy at the giant cataract

by Roy Rockwood

That tender, sweet melody sung by Sobrinini! Bomba had never heard it till lately, as far as he could remember, and yet felt that he had known it always. He wondered at the power it had exercised over him. It had tugged at his heart as though it would pull it out by the roots.

Perhaps, he thought, this was the work of Sobrinini. Was she not a witch? Certainly, everything he had witnessed since his arrival at the island tended to that conclusion. The mortal fear in which her servitors stood of her would seem to indicate the possession of some supernatural power. Had she woven a spell about him, made him seem to remember things that had never happened?

Yet this spell, if spell it was, had not been a malignant one. It had made him strangely happy. The tears that had been forced from him were tears of joy in the main, and even the melancholy that attended them had been tender and sweet.

And this emotion had been so rare in the boy’s lonely life that it brought a rush of gratitude toward Sobrinini. He was not afraid of the weaver of spells and the charmer of serpents. He stood in awe of her, but the predominant feeling was of friendship and pity for her demented condition.

And there was something else that made a tie between them. She had known Bartow and Bartow’s wife and Bonny. How much that name sounded like Bomba!

In the dim light of the growing dawn, Bomba came close to the beautiful pictured face on the wall and studied it wistfully. He could see love in those eyes as they looked at him. He would ask Sobrinini for that picture. Perhaps she would give it to him.

He dwelt on it, until every feature was engraved on his memory. From that time on, he would always be able to see that face, even when his eyes were closed.

Reluctantly at last he turned away. He had work to do, and time was pressing. He must find out from Sobrinini what he had come to learn. And then he must hurry on in pursuit of the captives of Nascanora. He must be at hand when the party passed the point in the river where Ashati and Neram were still waiting for him.

He would seek out Sobrinini at once and demand from her an answer to the questions that tormented him. He would find out who Bartow was and why he, Bomba, had twice been taken for Bartow or Bartow’s ghost.

With these thoughts in mind and forgetful of the fact that he had had nothing to eat since the afternoon of the day before, Bomba strode into the passage and found his way back to the strange room with the chairs and platform where Sobrinini had sung to him.