Bomba the jungle boy on Jaguar Island

by Roy Rockwood

If he had had any doubt that death had occurred, another flash showed that he had made no mistake. The great tree in falling had caught one of the Indians beneath it, crushing the life from his body instantly. The other savages were not visible, and Bomba rightly guessed that they would believe the spot to be under a curse and would shun it as they would the plague.

“They will not come back to-night,” reasoned the jungle lad, “and to-morrow will be too late, for Bomba will not be here.”

With Bomba, to think was to act. Reaching out, he clutched a handful of creepers and slid to the ground. He paused a moment to get his direction and then vanished into the underbrush.

There was no sign of his foes, and Bomba blessed that lightning stroke that had sent them in panic flight. Not for the next ten minutes did anything happen to give him alarm.

Then, without warning, he was struck from behind and fell to the ground. The sound of a guttural voice was in his ears and sinewy fingers wound themselves about his throat.

While the jungle boy struggles desperately to loose that strangling hold, it may be well, for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series, to tell who Bomba was and what had been his adventures up to the time this story opens.

Bomba could never remember a time when he had not lived in the jungle. His only companion and guardian was Cody Casson, an aged naturalist, who had withdrawn from civilization and the life of white people to settle in one of the remotest recesses of the Amazonian jungle. Whether he was related to him, Bomba did not know and had never wondered. He would not have known the meaning of relative. He only knew that he loved Casson and that Casson loved him, although the latter seldom demonstrated any affection in words, spending days at a time in moody abstraction.

The old man’s state had grown worse after a certain memorable day when he had fired a gun at an anaconda which was threatening to attack Bomba and the weapon had burst in his hands. The reptile was wounded by the flying missiles and retreated, but Casson had received a serious injury to his head. Bomba nursed him back to some degree of physical health, but Casson from that time on was half-demented, and the care of providing for the two had fallen on the lad’s shoulders.

For such youthful shoulders it was a heavy burden, but it helped to develop the lad into a wonder of strength and daring. Dangers of all kinds surrounded him, wild beasts and reptiles with which the jungle swarmed, and only quick wit and dauntless courage could preserve his life. But necessity is a hard taskmaster, and under its spur Bomba learned all the craft of the jungle. Keen of eye, swift of foot, supple of muscle, and strong of heart, he matched himself against his foes and so far had come out the victor. He was now about fourteen years old, but few grown men had his strength and resources.

Of the outside world he knew nothing. All his life was circumscribed by the jungle. Casson had started to give him a smattering of learning, but the explosion of the rifle had brought this to an abrupt stop.