Pipina set up a wail, but Bomba checked her.
“Do not cry, Pipina,” he said. “Bomba has many times gone into the jungle and come back again. Did he not go to the Moving Mountain and return? Did he not come back from the Giant Cataract and the island of snakes? The gods will watch over me, and you can stay here safe with the women of Hondura’s tribe and help them with their cooking and their weaving. And you can tell them of the hole in the floor and how you were wiser than all the warriors of Nascanora.”
The last was cunningly put, and the look of pride that came into the old woman’s eyes showed that if the Araos women failed to appreciate her strategy it would not be for lack of telling.
Bomba turned to the chief.
“Your heart is big, Hondura, and your heart is good,” he said. “Bomba will not forget.”
“It is but little that Hondura is doing for Bomba,” the old chieftain replied. “Did not Bomba save my people? Did he not bring back the women and little children that Nascanora’s bucks had stolen? My people would die for Bomba. And I will tell my braves to hunt for Casson. Wherever they go their eyes will be open for the old white man. They will be looking while Bomba is on his way to Jaguar Island. And if he is alive, they will find him.”
The assurance was an immense comfort to the heart of Bomba. If his own search for Casson failed, he would know that a host of sharp eyes were taking up his work. All that could be done would be done for the old man he loved.
He stayed at the maloca only long enough to get some more strings for his bow and to replenish his stock of arrows and put an additional edge on his machete. Then, with a warm farewell to Hondura, Pirah, Pipina, and the assembled people of the tribe, he plunged into the jungle.
He thought longingly of the “fire stick” and the cartridges that had been destroyed in the blazing cabin. He took the now useless revolver from his pouch where he carried it in a waterproof covering and looked at it sadly. It was a fine weapon, and he had learned to use it effectively, though not yet with the perfect accuracy of the machete and the bow and arrows.
“The fire stick might not hurt the ghosts from the sunken city,” he pondered, as he turned the revolver lovingly in his hands; “but against the beasts of the jungle and the braves of Nascanora it speaks with the voice of death. And who knows but what it might save my life when I reach the place of the big cats.”