The words of Hondura sent a strange chill through him. What did the Indian mean?
“Of what danger speak you, Hondura?” he asked in an awed voice. “Tell Bomba, so that he may know the truth.”
“Once a great many moons ago,” began Hondura, “there was above the island of the great cats a big, strange city.”
The eyes of Bomba glistened.
“Tell me of it!” he cried.
“Those that knew of it said it was a city of devils, though its beauty was that of the sun.”
“What made its beauty like the sun?” was Bomba’s eager query.
“The towers,” replied Hondura, “were of gold and reached upward like trees to the sky. When men looked upon them long they had to cover their eyes with their hands. Else they would have gone blind.”
“I wish that the eyes of Bomba might have seen it, Hondura!” exclaimed the lad. He thought longingly of those faraway cities described to him by the boy named Frank, the white boy, son of the woman with the golden hair, who had once kissed Bomba as though he had been her son. Perhaps this city with towers of gold was like those others. So he looked eagerly, yearningly, at the wrinkled face of the grizzled chieftain who spoke with such a calm air of assurance.
“It is many moons since the eyes of men have rested upon that city,” returned the Indian sternly, seeming by his manner to rebuke the boy’s enthusiasm.