But it must mean more than that. To be white meant not only to look different, but to act differently, to think differently, to live differently. What inner thing was it that made those who wore white skin for a covering, like himself and Casson and Gillis and Dorn, different from the brown or copper-skinned natives?
It was a problem too deep for Bomba, a problem that perplexed while it fascinated. Instinctively he knew that Cody Casson had the answer, or at least that he had possessed it in the days before the explosion of the fire stick.
The boy turned to the naturalist with a movement animal-like in its swiftness. He wanted to question him, to find out the truth, but he did not know how to begin.
But Cody Casson, groping in his mind, spoke suddenly of his own accord.
“I try to remember,” he muttered while Bomba bent closer to him, anxious to let not a word escape. “I try, but something closes like a door in my mind, locking me out, locking me out——”
It was pitiable to see him trying to goad his poor twisted brain into action. Bomba sat as though carved in stone, fearing that any movement on his part might hinder the revelation that seemed on the brink of utterance.
Casson began again, the words coming more quickly and with feverish intensity.
“It is for you I want to remember, Bomba; for you! I owe it to you. I am trying to think, trying—the door again—Bomba, help me to push back the door. There, I almost had it! Bartow—push, push hard, Bomba—trying to remember—Laura, dear sweet Laura—Oh, I can’t! I can’t! The door is shut. Gone—gone——”
The last word was a shriek.
With a groan of despair, Cody Casson turned over on his face, thin, veined hands outflung to clutch the jungle growth, his form convulsed with a passion of sobs.