This emotional outbreak on the part of Casson disturbed and puzzled Bomba.
Before it, he remained inarticulate, dumb, though there stirred in him a great longing to comfort his companion. The white men, he thought, would have slapped him on the back and laughed and made him feel better.
But Bomba could not do this. A strange embarrassment restrained him. So he sat and looked at Casson and suffered with him and said nothing.
The storm was short-lived. Casson’s groping fingers unclenched, and a long sigh shuddered through his frame.
Seeing this, Bomba gently turned him over, and, gathering some fallen leaves, placed them as a cushion beneath Casson’s head.
“You wait and rest here,” he ordered. “I will go and get some herbs.”
This time Casson made no objection to his going. He seemed ex
