Bomba was white. All his yearnings were toward those of his own race.
Who were his parents? He thought of the picture of the beautiful woman that had hung in the little back room of Sobrinini’s hut on the island of snakes. That face had stirred his heart as no other had ever done. Was the beautiful woman his mother?
Who was he? What had happened to his parents and why had he become at so early an age the sole companion of old Cody Casson?
He reviewed the strange behavior of the half-mad old woman, Sobrinini, she who had once been the operatic idol of Europe, she who had had kings at her feet. Why had she not finished the story of the man named Bartow, his wife, Laura, and the child they called Bonny?
Sobrinini had called him, Bomba, by the name of Bartow. She had thought in her poor twisted mind that Bomba was Bartow. Was it possible that Bomba was the boy who had once been called Bonny?
Bomba heaved a heavy sigh. Questions, questions always, and no answers. Cody Casson had the key to the mystery. But poor Casson must first find the key to that closed door in his mind beyond which he could not go.
His mind in a whirl of unrest and longing, Bomba at last reached the river which he must cross to reach the hut of Pipina.
The storm had now entirely died away. Only the heavy dripping of moisture from the foliage betrayed its recent passage. The jungle was still again with an unearthly stillness. The slight swish made by Bomba as he swung himself from branch to branch was the only sound that broke the silence.
Suddenly he paused and hung motionless, arms and legs entwined about a bunch of creepers. His quick ear had caught a sound other than the dripping of water on the sodden earth.
It was a slight sound, but Bomba knew at once what had caused it. It was the faint dip of paddles in the water. The Indians were traveling upstream. The headhunters of Nascanora were on their way to the hut of Pipina to spread terror and death. Fortunate if death were all! Far worse would be the tortures of any captives who might be carried off alive to make a holiday for the savages who had been left at home and who would revel in the screams of their victims.