It was a titanic struggle that was going on before his eyes. Both brutes were among the largest and most powerful of their kind. They rolled over and over, tearing from each other great strips of hide, fighting with teeth and claws, each trying to get a death hold on the other’s throat.
Bomba drew as near the antagonists as he could, circling about in an attempt to find a target in the jaguar. But the two beasts were whirling about like a giant pinwheel, first one on top and then the other, and Bomba did not dare use either arrow or machete for fear that he would wound or kill Polulu instead of the jaguar.
But Polulu needed no help to dispose of his enemy. He had no match in the jungle for size and strength, and was rapidly getting the better of the combat when, with a savage roar, a second jaguar, possibly the mate of the first, plunged into the fight.
The newcomer sank its teeth deep into Polulu’s flank while at the same time a claw of its hindleg tore a strip of the puma’s hide. Polulu turned upon his second assailant and gave him a blow with his great paw that loosened the brute’s hold and sent him rolling six feet away. But the jaguar was up in an instant and returned to the attack. At the same time the first jaguar, inspired to fresh efforts by the coming of its ally, redoubled the ferocity of its fighting.
The odds were too great. Polulu could have conquered either jaguar alone with comparative ease. But with two attacking him at once, he had no chance.
Such rage swept over Bomba as he had scarcely ever known before. With a yell of encouragement to Polulu, he leaped into the fray, throwing caution to the winds. His only thought was that Polulu, his friend, must not die.
He buried his hand in the thick fur of the second jaguar’s neck, and as the beast turned snarling to meet this new attack, raised his machete and, with all his force, drove it downward.
He sensed the bite of the sharp steel on flesh, felt it slip along bone and reach the brain of the beast.
As though lifted by an earthquake, Bomba was hurled from the back of the jaguar upon the ground. With a roar that echoed and re-echoed through the jungle, the stricken brute rose on its hind legs, pawed the air blindly for a moment, and then fell.
Bomba lifted himself, half-dazed, on his elbow and stared at the great cat, a moment before so terrible, now stretched out prone and inert.