Jeff did not sob or cry when at last he lifted his brown eyes to his mother's face. Yet his voice was weak and trembling as he said slowly:
"I will go away from you bravely, mother, as you wish it. I have never been disobedient, have I? I will try and not forget till you come that you wish me to be brave—that it is a noble thing to be brave." Then, with a heart-rending sob, "Mother, oh mother, do not be very long before you come!"
CHAPTER II.
On the voyage home Jeff found many things to amuse him, and made friends in every part of the big steamer. The stewards, and the crew, and the stokers would all smile, or have some joke ready, when his bright little face appeared round some unlikely corner. For Jeff soon knew his way about the ship, and was here, there, and everywhere all day long. Of course he was not always thinking of his home in India, or of the dear faces he had left behind. Even grown-up people easily forget their sorrows in new scenes. Still, Jeff would grow grave when he remembered he had seen the tears in his father's eyes for the first time, when he had said, "Good-bye, my little son."
Further back still, and yet more sacred, so sacred indeed that he only liked to think of it after his prayers, he cherished in his memory the picture of his sad mother, standing in the verandah of their bungalow, waving her hand to them as he and Maggie were driven away. The tight feeling at his heart came again at the bare recollection of the tall slim figure in white, the tearless pale face, the sad sweet smile.
When he lay in his berth at night time—above the creaking and groaning of machinery, above the din inevitable on a steamer—he heard a gentle voice bless him as on that last evening at home:
"God be with you, my own little lad. Be brave till I see you again. I shall be so proud to feel that my boy is a real hero."
On the way to Bombay Jeff had asked his father what a real hero was. Then he had been told that a hero was "one full of courage and great patience, and dauntless before difficulties; one who allowed no fear to overcome him, who fulfilled his duty, and something over it under hard and trying circumstances."
Jeff was unusually quiet and thoughtful for some little time after this explanation, and the father could not help wondering why he looked so grave and sad.