If the distressed boy had been the speaker's son, and the captors savages, the speaker would have been surprised to see how differently the thing looked from the new point of view; however, it is not our custom to put ourselves in the other person's place.

Somehow there is something pathetic about that disappointed young savage's resignation.

I must explain, here, that in the traffic dialect, "boy" does not always mean boy; it means a youth above sixteen years of age.

That is by Queensland law the age of consent, though it is held that recruiters allow themselves some latitude in guessing at ages.
Captain Wawn of the free spirit chafes under the annoyance of "cast-iron regulations." They and the missionaries have poisoned his life.

He grieves for the good old days, vanished to come no more.