“The Indians!” panted Bomba, as he slammed the door shut and slipped into place the heavy bar he had fashioned while he was rebuilding the hut. “Nascanora and his head-hunters! They are here. You heard their cries. They have come to get you, to burn you in a fire.”
A light of comprehension came into Casson’s old faded eyes.
“But they shall not,” he cried, with a flare of the old courage and energy in which Bomba had formerly taken pride and which he had never expected to see again. “We will fight. I do not much care for myself; but if they kill me, they will kill you, too. And they shall not do it! We will beat them off!”
“Yes,” cried Bomba, his eyes kindling. “But they are many. We shall have to fight hard. We will fight with bows and arrows. And when they are gone, we will fight some more, you with the spear and I with the fire stick. And the machete, too, will be good. Yes, we will fight.”
For a time, however, it seemed that it might not be necessary to fight. After the first howls of fright and the frantic scurrying of the Indians before that awful apparition, a deep silence again fell on the jungle.
An hour passed, and still the hush continued.
In the truce thus gained, Bomba and Casson made all the preparations possible for the battle that seemed imminent. The old man, under the stimulus of the danger threatening them, regained something of his old energy and power to think and act.
How long this would continue Bomba did not know. But he was thankful for the change. It gave him a sense of comradeship, a relief from bearing a dead weight, and infused him with new heart and hope. How much Casson would be able to accomplish was of course conjectural, but there was a chance that even his feeble help might turn the scale of battle.
Together they got out their stock of arrows and laid them within easy reach. Bomba fully loaded the revolver and opened all his boxes of cartridges. The boy, in reconstructing the cabin, had made loopholes on all four sides through which the weapons could be discharged.
He took advantage now of the lull, and ate some handfuls of rice and raw maize and drank copious draughts of water. It was but a meager meal, but it refreshed him wonderfully.