“And now,” said Bomba, as he made a last examination of his weapons, “it is time for Bomba to go. He will think often of Ashati and Neram and will be glad that they are in the maloca of the good chief Hondura. They will be good to Pipina and bring her much meat. And they will try to find Casson. If they do find him, Bomba’s heart will be more glad than it has been for many moons.”
“Neram and Ashati will do what they can to find Casson,” promised the former.
“And they will give much meat to the medicine man so that he may pray to his gods for Bomba,” added Ashati.
With a last wave of the hand, Bomba left them, and they stood looking after him until the jungle swallowed him up. Then, with heavy hearts, they took the backward trail to Hondura’s camp.
Bomba went on at a good rate of speed. The sound sleep that he had enjoyed had recuperated him immensely. Thanks, too, to the explicit information he had got from the ex-slaves, he now moved with more certainty directly toward his goal.
He grieved for Sobrinini, for, though he had no deep affection for the old woman, she had been kind to him. Then, too, she had been a sort of slender link between him and the parents he had never known well enough to remember. Sobrinini had known them and had sought to tell Bomba about them, but the twist in her poor brain had made it impossible. She had, however, given him the clue to Japazy as possessing the knowledge he sought, and for this Bomba was grateful.
Much more than for Sobrinini did he sorrow for Casson. Dear old Casson had been a part of his life. It was hard to think of existence without him. And he had been white, so different from the brown-skinned natives with their ignorance, their superstition, their narrowed lives.
White! That was the most precious word in Bomba’s limited vocabulary. For it marked him out as different from the forms of life by which he was surrounded. He wanted to be different. He wanted to be like Gillis and Dorn, the white rubber hunters, the men who laughed and slapped each other on the back. There was little laughter in the jungle. Bomba wanted some companion, some one with whom he could laugh, whom he could slap on the back. Some one like Frank Parkhurst, who had seen so much, who had told him about the great ocean, of mighty cities.
He thought of the promises of the rubber hunters and the Parkhursts that they would come back and take Bomba from the jungle. No doubt they had been sincere enough at the time, but many moons had passed now with no word from them. Perhaps they had been killed by savages or wild beasts before they got back to the coast.
More likely, Bomba thought, with a tinge of bitterness, they had forgotten him.