Since then this primitive medicine had served as Bomba’s stock remedy for all the ills of Casson and himself. It had remarkable healing and tonic qualities. Bomba had once taken it internally for snake bite, and since he had not died, believed implicitly ever afterward in the panacea of Candido, the half-witted caboclo.
So now, when it had acquired the proper consistency, he made a leaf cup and poured some of the steaming liquid into it. Lifting Casson to a sitting position, he put the primitive cup to his lips and commanded that he drink.
“You will feel good,” he declared, and Casson obediently swallowed the dose.
Casson shortly afterward seemed greatly revived. He insisted on sitting up, his back propped against a tree. From this vantage point he watched Bomba as the boy prepared to clear away the ruins of the fire.
The jungle boy worked hard and fast. It was no easy task to clear away the débris, much of it still hot and smouldering, and night was coming on. Later he would rebuild the damaged side of the hut. For the present it was sufficient that he arrange some sort of bed for Casson and build a fire that would keep the prowling beasts of the forest at a safe distance.
While he worked, Bomba could feel the wistful eyes of Casson upon him. He knew that the old naturalist was again groping, trying to swing open that “closed door” in his mind.
The work was done at last. Leaves and branches for a bed had been dragged within the hut. The fire was built far enough from the cabin not to endanger it, but still close enough to warn off nocturnal marauders.
Bomba went for water to the stream that flowed back of the dwelling, and, returning, set the pot once more upon the fire, this time to prepare the evening meal.
There was no food about the place, for Bomba had brought none back from his trip to the white man’s camp. He was about to go into the forest, weary as he was, in search of some sort of game, when Casson’s faint voice called to him.
“There are turtle eggs,” he said. “I found them this afternoon when I was watching the ciganas, those big brown birds with the splendid crowns. They are there, the eggs, beyond that large flat stone.”