I. CROUCHED FOR A SPRING

“WE will stop here and eat.”

It was Bomba, the jungle boy, who spoke when the curious party of four came to a halt in a clearing of the great Amazonian jungle.

“It is well, Master,” assented Gibo, a tall, stalwart Indian, as he laid aside his bow and war club. “The way has been long and the sun has been hot.”

He motioned to Neram, his fellow servant, and the two began their preparations for a simple meal.

“No, Bomba, it were better to push on,” interposed Sobrinini, the only feminine member of the party, an ancient hag-like woman, whose face retained no traces of its former beauty that had once brought kings and princes to her feet, and whose eyes had in them the gleam of a disordered mind, “The heart of Sobrinini is sore until she can prove to Bomba that she has told him the truth.”

“Bomba does not think that Sobrinini has spoken to him with a forked tongue,” said the jungle boy soothingly. “And Sobrinini needs rest. Else will she faint and fall before we reach the journey’s end.”

The woman looked at him searchingly.

“The journey’s end for Sobrinini will come sooner than Bomba thinks,” she prophesied.

“How will it come?” asked the jungle boy, more to humor the demented creature than because he believed in her claim to second sight.

“Ah, that is more than Sobrinini can tell just now,” was the reply. “But it is coming, and coming soon. If Sobrinini had her beloved snake with her now, it would whisper in her ear and tell her what she wants to know.”

A waft of wind at the moment brushed one of her long floating locks of gray hair against her throat.

Instantly she seized it and pressed it close against her neck, crooning to it the while.

“It is Azra, my pet!” she cried delightedly, thinking she was fondling one of the snakes over which she had such a mysterious power. “Azra is wise. Speak, Azra, and tell Sobrinini when comes her journey’s end.”

It was an eerie sight, and it chilled the blood in Bomba’s veins. It recalled to him the dreadful flight when he had first seen Sobrinini, the witch-woman, dancing on the soil of her Island of Snakes, with the slimy creatures winding themselves in festoons about her throat and body.

Gibo and Neram looked on, terrified.

“She is a woman accursed,” muttered Gibo.

“It were well to pray to the gods,” declared Neram, as he murmured incantations to his favorite deity.

“Azra has spoken,” cackled the witch woman shrilly. “He has told Sobrinini that the end of the journey draws near. It comes on four feet, on eight feet, on twelve feet.”

“Sobrinini has spoken foolish words,” said Bomba sternly, for he dreaded the effect of these wild vaporings on the superstitions of his followers. “Words that are empty and have no meaning. Sobrinini must eat now. Then she shall lie down and rest till the heat of the sun is past.”

Her wild frenzy over, the woman submitted meekly enough, and the party sat down to the