Whether the man breathed or not, Bomba did not stop to inquire. It was enough that he had been put out of action. The noise of the struggle, muffled as it had been, might already be drawing others to the scene. Bomba must act swiftly, if he were to leave the spot alive.
One of his precious minutes he gave to the search for his machete. With its aid he might still win through to Casson at the hut of Pipina. By a stroke of good fortune he found the weapon where it had stuck in the trunk of a tree.
With a smothered cry of elation, Bomba leaped upon it and wrenched it from its hold. Again and again that knife had saved his life, and it might do it again before the night was over.
Bomba’s body was bruised, he was dead tired, but his spirit was unhurt. The thirst of battle was still in him. His blood was hot with it.
Twice to-night he had outwitted his enemies. Nascanora and his half-brother Tocarora would again realize that he, Bomba, was as slippery as the cooanaradi and as deadly.
He wasted no time. He set his feet in the direction of the cabin of Pipina, the squaw, and went stealthily yet swiftly through the jungle.
The storm had felled great trees across his path. Some of these he climbed over, while he took the smaller ones with a leap. Where the ground was impassable he swung himself along from creeper to creeper and branch to branch. No inhabitant of the jungle save the monkeys were as skilled in this method of progress as Bomba, and he made his way with amazing celerity. Never had that accomplishment stood him in better stead.
His eyes and ears were alert for the slightest sight or sound that might forebode danger. But this did not prevent his mind from being in a tumult of varied emotions.
His most anxious thought was of Casson, Casson alone in the jungle hut save for Pipina. Again the headhunters sought the life of Casson. Again was Bomba hunted like the veriest wild beast.
Bitterness welled up in the heart of the lad against these savages, whom he had never injured except in self-defense. Why was he doomed to spend his life among these people so alien to him?