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Updated: June 23, 2025
And Oomah started on a run toward the cluster of hovels on the margin of the water. His cries brought out the men and women before he reached their midst, and it required but a moment to deliver his message. "Impossible," Choflo replied with a malicious gleam in his eyes. "The sign did not appear to me." "But, I saw it. The children saw it. Gather up what you can and run for your lives." "No!"
On those rare occasions when he saw game his arms trembled so violently as he drew the bow that the arrow went wide and fell far short of the mark. Choflo had guessed well. He was sure that the Black Phantom would prove too elusive or too savage for any human pursuer, and that he should never see Oomah again. In both things he was right.
"Seven settings of the sun ago the arrow was sent on its flight into the darkness; but where it struck I cannot tell." "On that night Choflo, who sent you, was slain by a great, spotted she-tiger which burst into his shelter and fought savagely to retain her prize even when assailed with spears and firebrands in the hands of those who would have rescued him.
In fact, not until darkness fell did he arouse himself sufficiently to rise unsteadily to his feet and to limp away from the bank of the treacherous river. It was the seventh year since the great drought. Choflo, headman, sorcerer and oracle of the Cantanas, scanned the brassy sky and smote his breast with clenched fists.
If he failed, the whole earth, as he knew it, would be laid waste; Tumwah would never stop his fiery onslaught until the Black Phantom had been slain. Had not Choflo, who knew all things, said so? Still, he could not but feel that the sorcerer had been at least to some extent influenced by personal motives in interpreting the wishes of the Great Spirit.
"Now go," Choflo said, ceremoniously presenting the magic arrow, "and return when you have slain the Black Phantom. Bring back the ears, the claws and the tail so that we may have the proof. And do not return until your mission has been fulfilled."
The first thing he did after the sun appeared was to examine minutely the arrow prepared by Choflo. Certain words whispered into his ear by old Yaro had had the effect of making him cautious. Besides, there were his own suspicions to verify or to disprove.
Two hours later he halted, started a fire by rubbing together two dry sticks and placed a forest partridge which he had shot on the way, to roast. While the meat sputtered on the spit he collected the slender stems of the same species of creeper that Choflo had gathered and buried in the floor of his shelter, and prepared the poison of whose deadliness there was no question.
Abandoning everything, they rushed in a body toward the distant bank that meant safety; and Choflo, despite his years, well held his place among them. They were just in time. Scarcely had the last man gained the higher ground than the wall of water thundered down the riverbed, engulfing everything in its path.
"And today," Oomah, youngest but most fearless of the hunters panted, "I pursued a she-pig in the forest. Three young were running at her heels instead of two." "The signs do not lie," Choflo returned. "Look! See how the sand in the islands and on the riverbank is cracking! Tumwah is angry.
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