Читать книгу Bomba the Jungle Boy at the Moving Mountain - Walter S. Rogers - Страница 7
ОглавлениеTHE IMPENDING STORM
Tocarora staggered back, trembling and terrified, before this illustration of the white man’s magic. His untutored mind had received a blow that made it reel.
He knew that he had brought no betel nuts with him. Yet here they were, plucked with nonchalance from every organ of his head.
It must be the work of demons, allies of the white man. It behooved him to go very slowly in dealing with this wonderful magician.
Casson yawned and slipped the betel nuts indifferently into his pocket.
“You see, Tocarora, it is not well to try to harm the white man,” he said. “Go back to Nascanora and tell him what you have seen. Tell him that Casson has no evil in his mind toward him or his people and that he will put no spell on him if he be left alone. But if he rouses the wrath of the white man, it will be very bad for Nascanora. Will you tell him this?”
“I will tell him,” mumbled Tocarora, thoroughly cowed for the moment and feeling furtively of his nose and ears.
“It is well,” said Casson impressively. “And now,” he added haughtily, “depart to your people and leave me alone with my slave. I have spoken.”
He turned and made his way slowly to the cabin, while Tocarora made haste to seek the shelter of the woods, a far less truculent chieftain than he had been when he had emerged from them.
Casson maintained his stately attitude until he had slammed the door of the hut behind him. Then the temporary strength that he had summoned for a great emergency deserted him, and he sank, weary and exhausted, to the floor.
Bomba’s mind was in a whirl. He had watched breathlessly from his loophole the course of the conference. He had been stricken with wonder almost equal to Tocarora’s own at the exploits of Casson. Never had the old man shown him any of these tricks. What miracle was it that had transformed the aged naturalist into a masterful wonder-worker? He felt a strange humility and an added respect for his white-haired companion, whom he had come to regard almost as a child.
“Tocarora was frightened,” remarked Bomba. “He thinks you are a great magic man. And so do I. It was wonderful to see what you did. How did you do it? Was it the heaven you were speaking about that helped you?”
“Perhaps you are nearer the truth than you think,” said Casson, with a faint smile, “for if anyone ever needed the help of heaven it is ourselves. But there was no magic about it. Many years ago I learned those tricks for my own amusement. I practised them till I could do them perfectly. Some day I will show you how they are done. But just now I am very tired. I must rest.”
“I will help you to get into your hammock,” said Bomba, rising to suit the action to the word. “You have done more with your tricks than I could do with my arrows and the fire stick. I think Tocarora and his men are so frightened at your magic that they will go away.”
But Casson shook his head.
“I do not think so,” he said. “They have come too far to give up their plans. Tocarora will talk to his medicine man and his headmen, and they will urge him to kill or capture us. Their squaws would laugh at them if they went back to the Giant Cataract and told them that they, although so many, were afraid of one old man and a boy. The effect of the tricks will wear off after a while, and Tocarora will be angry at himself for showing fear where his braves could see him. No, they will come again. But it will not be for a long time, maybe, not until to-morrow, for they will make long talk before they make up their minds what to do. We have given them much to think about.”
The reaction was on Cody Casson now, and he was so limp and weak that Bomba had to lift him into his hammock, where he sank at once into what resembled a stupor more than a sleep.
It was with a strange medley of emotions that Bomba went back to the loophole and resumed his watch. He had been accustomed for so long to take the lead in everything that required courage and initiative that the sudden flaring up of those qualities in Casson filled him with surprise and hope. Instead of a burden, the aged naturalist had become an ally.
This meant much as a reinforcement. But might it not mean more in another direction? If Casson’s memory, which had seemed dormant for years, could come back to him so that he could remember and practise tricks that had long been forgotten, why might it not recall also the facts concerning Bomba’s birth and parentage that the old man had tried vainly to tell him? Why might it not explain the mysteries connected with “Bartow” and “Laura?”
Bomba’s heart leaped at the possibility and he determined to question Casson the moment he awoke.
But he did not permit the thoughts that thronged him to abate his vigilance by a single jot. His eyes were fastened on the fringe of trees beyond which lay his enemies.
As far as any sound was concerned, they might already have decamped. The jungle lay silent in the baking rays of the sun. No skulking figure appeared among the trees.
But Bomba permitted himself to indulge in no illusions. He knew how shadowlike could be the movements of his foes when they so desired. He did not doubt that at that very moment scores of eyes were watching him intently, ready to thwart any movement toward escape.
One reflection brought him some comfort. His enemies had not surrounded the cabin. So far as he knew, they were all in front of him. But he had little doubt that as soon as darkness came the enveloping movement would be completed.
He thought of the bark canoe hidden in a thick clump of grass on the border of the river that ran back of the hut. Ever since the previous attack he had kept a stock of dried provisions in the boat, in preparation for a hasty escape down the river. It was this he had had in mind when he had hastened through the jungle to warn Casson. But the arrival of Tocarora and his band sooner than he had expected had cut off that avenue of retreat.
The long afternoon wore on, and the evening shadows were gathering when a movement in the hammock indicated that Casson was awaking.
“Where are you, Bomba?” came in a faltering voice.
“I am here, Casson,” replied the lad. “I am keeping watch against the savages.”
“The savages?” repeated Casson dazedly. “What savages? Where are they?”
“Tocarora and his people,” replied Bomba, his heart sinking as he realized that Casson was again groping in the land of shadows. “The man you were talking to this afternoon. The man you frightened with your tricks.”
“Tricks?” muttered Casson bewilderedly.
“Yes,” replied Bomba. “Don’t you remember? You called to the iron and it came. You touched the smoke with your finger and the torch was lighted. You took betel nuts from his eyes and ears and mouth.”
“I used to do those things,” murmured Casson. “It was many, many years ago. I do not think I could do them now.”
All the hopes that Bomba had nurtured collapsed like a house of cards. A great emergency had swung open the door of Casson’s memory, and during that period of exaltation and revelation he had been his old self. Now the door had swung shut again, and he was again the weak and helpless invalid that he had become in recent years.
Where now were Bomba’s dreams of learning what concerned him most—the meaning of “Bartow” and “Laura?” The door was shut!
He realized this with a pang that stabbed his heart. But he had no time to indulge in vain regrets.
“Listen, Casson,” he said. “The headhunters are here only a few feet away in the jungle. Tocarora is leading them. You talked to him this afternoon. He said he wanted you to go with him to the Giant Cataract to take the spell off his people.”
“Yes,” replied Casson, rubbing his hand over his forehead. “I remember that now. And I said that I would not go.”
“That is right,” rejoined Bomba. “And he said that he would give your message to Nascanora. But I think his tongue is forked and his heart is black. When the night comes, he and his people may try to capture us or kill us. We must try to get away from here.”
“Yes,” assented Casson. “But how?”
“I do not know yet,” replied Bomba. “We may be able to get to the boat, or, if not, we may have to go into the jungle. The moon will not come up till late, and we must go before it comes. We will eat now, and then carry away with us all the food we can. See, it is getting dark already.”
Casson moved about submissively, doing as directed. All the fire and spirit that had marked him in his interview with Tocarora had vanished, and he was again nothing but a weak and broken old man.
Bomba noted not only that the sky was darkening, but that the wind was rising. It came in a gentle soughing at first, followed by strong gusts that steadily increased in violence.
His heart leaped as he read the signs. A tropical storm was brewing. Nature was coming to their aid!
His chief fear had been that when darkness came the savages would attempt to set fire to the cabin by shooting into the logs arrows tipped with flame. Against such an attack he would have no adequate defense.
But now, if the rain fell, the cabin would be drenched and fire could gain no foothold.
Then, too, in the pitch darkness and descending torrents their chances of escape would be redoubled. Even the keen eyes of their enemies might be baffled, and if the fugitives could once get away from the vicinity of the cabin the rain would wash away all traces of their footprints and foil the human bloodhounds that would try to follow them.
In the gathering darkness he and Casson munched the farina and cured meat, of which there was abundance in the cabin. They ate heartily in preparation for the famine that might menace them in the days to come.
Soon the very darkness seemed to grow blacker when the rain that long had threatened began to fall.
It came at first in spattering gusts that soon became torrents that beat upon the roof like thunder until it seemed that all the windows of heaven had been opened to release their floods of water.
The two within the cabin gathered up their weapons and their food supplies. Then, at a propitious moment, Bomba touched Casson on the arm.
“Come!” he said.
