But only for a moment. The next instant the instinct of self-preservation asserted itself, and he shot forward like an arrow.
He knew he could not reach the shore before the dreadful thing would be upon him. But he would struggle till the last. As a final resource he had his knife.
But what would that knife avail against murderous jaws armed with a score of knives? One nip from those jaws could sever his leg from his body, or, if they caught him at the waist, could bite him in half.
His arms and legs were working like piston-rods. He was fairly leaping through the water. But behind him was coming a fearsome thing that could swim still faster.
Still Bomba sped on, his eyes fixed on the land steadily drawing nearer, even though the lad had the conviction that his feet would never press that land again.
The muscles in his strong arms were strained until it seemed as though they would burst. He breathed with difficulty. His head, surcharged with blood, felt as though it were encircled by an iron band that was eating its way into it.
One hurried glance over his shoulder showed him that the cayman was gaining. The distance between them had sensibly diminished.
As a whole world of thoughts is said to pass through the brain of a drowning man, so Bomba reviewed in those terrible moments the things that had come into his life.
One thought tore a sob from his aching throat. It was of Casson, poor, gentle, bewildered Casson, left alone to face the perils of the jungle, the jaguar, the sucurujus, the dreaded boa constrictor, and those human foes, perhaps more terrible still, bent on his destruction.
There was another grief, a longing bitterly poignant though but vaguely understood, that stirred his soul to the depths with agony.