Land! To feel the solid earth beneath him after the nightmare of that awful journey through the seething waters. Now let the alligators rage! He had cheated them on their own element.
But had he cheated them? He must not grow careless. The alligators could travel on land as well as in the water. They were close at hand, and one or more might come creeping up the bank.
So, tired as he was, he got to his feet and made his way cautiously inland until he came to a thorn thicket, into which he burrowed, not without scratches on arms and legs. But what were scratches to one who had escaped the jaws of the caymans?
Was he on Jaguar Island? Or had he struck a smaller island? Ashati and Neram had told him of one that stood in the river two miles above the island of the big cats. Perhaps it was this one on which his raft had grounded.
He need not wait long to know. The moon would soon be up, flooding all the world with light. Then he could make a survey of his surroundings and get his bearings.
In the meantime, rest was unspeakably sweet. The terrific strain under which he had been during that perilous journey down the river had tested his strength and endurance to the uttermost. Now he relaxed.
But he did not sleep. For, if he were not already on Jaguar Island, he still had a trip to make that night. He had vowed to himself that he would not sleep until he had reached the island where Japazy dwelt. Then only would he lie down to slumber.
Perhaps to the slumber that knows no waking! He knew that, too. But the possibility did not for one moment swerve him from his purpose.
A little while later a faint light came flickering in among the trees. The moon was rising. Bomba waited for a few minutes more and then emerged from his shelter and looked about him.
A little scouting showed him that he was not on Jaguar Island. There was no semblance of human habitation of any kind. The island was only a few acres in extent, and in a little while he had walked all around it.