Bomba spoke in a very low tone, scarcely above a whisper. But Pipina interrupted him, holding up her hand.
“Listen!” she said. “What was that?”
For answer Bomba seized her by the shoulders and dragged her down beside him. Surrounded by the thick brush, they were well concealed from any one who did not pass too close. There was always a chance of being stumbled upon. But in that event Bomba’s knife would flash with the quickness of the rattlesnake’s spring, and its sting would be quite as deadly.
Bomba listened, muscles tensed, every sense alert. Neither he nor Pipina had been mistaken. They had heard a sound, the sharp crackling of a twig beneath a stealthy foot.
They heard no more for several seconds. Then, not twenty feet from them, the brushwood stirred, and from it they saw two figures emerge and stand faintly outlined against the darker shadows of the jungle.
Bomba’s first thought was that perhaps the sound he heard had been caused by Casson. His heart leaped with hope and gladness. But that feeling was quickly dispelled when he recognized two of the headhunters of Nascanora.
They stood there conversing in a dialect which Bomba readily understood, as he did most other languages of the region.
“They are dead,” said one of them. “The fire has made ashes of their bones. The white witch doctor will no longer lay his spells on the people of the Giant Cataract.”
Bomba rejoiced. They had not then found Casson.
“It is good,” returned the other. “The squaws and the old men of the tribe will be glad when we tell them that the man who made bad magic is dead.”