But he realized that he still had far to go. How much these white men knew! In what a different world they moved! How far superior they seemed to him! How ignorant he was, compared to them!
But he would learn. He would ask Casson. Casson must know all the things the other white men knew. And then his heart sank, as he realized that Casson seemed to have forgotten all or almost all that he had ever known. There was little help to be expected from the man with whom Bomba lived.
He was engrossed in these meditations when Gillis opened his eyes. They fell on Bomba, and recollection came into them.
“How does our hero feel this morning?” asked Gillis, with a genial smile.
“What is a hero?” asked Bomba, with his usual directness.
“Why, you fill the bill as well as anyone I ever saw,” returned Gillis. “A hero is a man or boy who isn’t afraid.”
“But I was afraid last night,” said Bomba.
“I guess we all were,” remarked Gillis. “Well then, a hero is one who, even if he is afraid, doesn’t let fear get the best of him, but fights on and makes up his mind to keep on fighting till he dies. And that’s what you’d have done last night if it had come to that. But it’s getting pretty late, and we’ll have to get a move on.”
He shook Dorn awake, gave some orders to the natives, and soon the camp was alive with preparations for breakfast.
This time Bomba took his knife and fork at the outset, and was gratified to note that he could already handle them much better than he had on the night before.