Turned, though he knew it not, toward a more grisly peril than he had yet encountered!
CHAPTER XVI
GRIPPED
The fury of the storm was over, but evidences of it remained.
Castanha nuts lay thick upon the ground. Here a tree had been riven by lightning from top to base. There a forest monarch, uprooted by the gale, lay prostrate.
Again and again Bomba was compelled to make detours. But he advanced rapidly, nevertheless, so much was he a part of the jungle. He avoided upflung roots and intertwining vines as though by instinct.
At times he had to use his machete to force a way for himself through the bushes. In other places, where the undergrowth was not too high, he progressed after the manner of the Indians, in a succession of deer-like leaps that carried him over the obstacles in his path.
His steps now led him toward the ygapo, for it was necessary for him to pass through the swamp before reaching the river beyond which lay the maloca of the Araos, a comparatively friendly tribe with whom he and Casson had had no differences, although there was never any intimacy between them.
From these he hoped to obtain a pair of cotton hammocks to replace those that had been burned in the fire that had visited the hut. He would gather something on the way to pay for them, perhaps a jaboty or agouti, or possibly some eggs of the forest tortoise, which were always acceptable to natives of the region.
He might, too, learn something about the plans of the head-hunters, if those fierce foes were still in that part of the jungle. Since his first encounter, he had seen no traces of them, although the thought of them was always in the back of his mind.
As Casson had said, the savages were like children, as far as fixity of purpose was concerned. They were ignorant and superstitious, and any unlooked-for incident might be interpreted by them as a sign of the displeasure of their gods at their present expedition and make them return to their home near the Giant Cataract.