Again he assailed the mass that held him prisoner, and as he burrowed slowly into it the truth dawned upon him. He recalled the rumblings of the Great Nagoola that had frightened Nadara the night of the council. A terrific quake had done this thing. Thandar shuddered as he thought of Nadara. Was she, too, imprisoned in her cave, or had the worst happened to her? Frantically now, he tore at the close-packed rubble. But he soon discovered that not in ill-directed haste lay his means of escape. Slowly and carefully, piece by piece, he must remove the broken rock until he had tunneled through to the outer world.
Reason told him that he was not deeply buried, for the fact that he lived and could breathe was sufficient proof that fresh air was finding its way through the debris, which it could not have done did the stiff lie before the cave in any considerable thickness.
Weak as he was he could work but slowly, so that it was several hours later before he caught the first glimpse of daylight beyond the obstacle. After that he progressed more rapidly, and presently he crawled through a small opening to view the wreckage of the shattered cliff.
A flock of vultures rose from their hideous feast as the sight of Thandar disturbed them. The man shuddered as he looked down upon the grisly things from which they had risen. Forgetting his hunger and his thirst he scrambled up over the tortured cliff face to where Nadara’s cave had been. Its mouth was buried as his had been. Again he set to work, but this time is was easier. When at last he had opened a way within he hesitated for fear of the blighting sorrow that awaited him
At last, nerving himself to the ordeal, he crawled within the cave that had been Nadara’s. Groping about in the darkness, expecting each moment to feel the body of his loved one cold in death, he at last covered the entire floor—there was no body within.
Hastily he made his way to the face of the cliff again, and then commenced a horrible and pitiful search among the ghastly remnants of men and women that lay scattered about among the tumbled rocks. But even here his search was vain, for the ghoulish scavengers had torn from their prey every shred of their former likenesses.
Weak, exhausted, sorrow ridden and broken, Thandar dragged himself painfully to the little river. Here he quenched his thirst and bathed his body. After, he sought food, and then he crawled to a hole he knew of in the river bank, and curling up upon the dead grasses within, slept the sun around.
Refreshed and strengthened by his sleep and the food that he had taken Thandar emerged from his dark warren with renewed hope. Nadara could not be dead! It as impossible. She must have escaped and be wandering about the island. He would search for her until he found her. But as day followed day and still no sign of Nadara, or any other living human being he became painfully convinced that he alone of the inhabitants of the island had survived the cataclysm.
The thought of living on through a long life without her cast him into the blackest pit of despair. He reproached heaven for not having taken him as well, for without Nadara life was not worth living. With the passage of time his grief grew more rather than less acute. As it increased do too increased the horror of his loneliness. It island became a hated thing—life a mockery. The chances that a vessel would touch the shore again during his lifetime seemed remote indeed, unless his father sent out a relief party, but in his despair he did not even hope for such a contingency.
He would not take his own life, though the temptation was great, but he courted death in every form that the savage island owned. He slept out upon the ground at night. He sought Nagoola in his lair, and armed only with his light lance he leaped to close quarters with every one of the great cats he could find.
The wild boars, often as formidable as Nagoola himself, were hunted now as they never had been hunted before. Thandar lived high those days, and many were the panther pelts that lined his new-found cave in the cliff beside the sea—the same cliff in which Nadara had found shelter, and from whence she had gone away with the search part from the Priscilla.
One day as Thandar was returning from the beach where he often when to scan the horizon for a sail, he saw something moving at the foot of his cliff. Thandar dropped behind a bush, watching. A moment later the thing moved again, and Thandar saw that it was a man. Instantly he sprang to his feet and ran forward. The days that he had been without human companionship had seemed to drag themselves into as many weary months. Now he had reached the pinnacle of loneliness from which he would gladly have embraced the devil had he come in human guise.
Thandar ran noiselessly. He was almost upon the man, a great, hairy brute, before the fellow was aware of his presence. At first the fellow turned to run, but when he saw that Thandar was alone he remained to fight.
“I am Roof,” he cried, “and I can kill you!”
The familiar primitive greeting no longer raised Thandar’s temperature or filled him with the fire of battle. He wanted companionship now, not a quarrel.
“I am Thandar,” he replied.
The slow-witted hulking brute recognized him, and stepped back a pace. He was not so keen to fight now that he had learned the identity of the man who faced him. He had seen Thandar in battle. He had witnessed Thurg’s defeat at the hands of this smooth-skinned stranger.
“Let us not fight,” continued Thandar. “We are alone upon the island. I have seen no other than you since the Great Nagoola came forth and destroyed the people. Let us be friends, hunting together in peace. Otherwise one of us must kill the other and thereafter live always alone until death releases him from his terrible solitude.”
Roof peered over Thandar’s shoulder toward the wood behind him.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Yes, have I not told you that all were killed but you and I?”
“All were not killed,” replied Roof. “But I will be friends with Thandar. We will hunt together and cave together. Roof and Thandar are brothers.”
He stooped, and gathering a handful of grass advanced toward the American. Thandar did likewise and when each had taken the peace offering of the other and rubbed it upon his forehead the ceremony of friendship was complete—simple but none the less effectual, for each knew that the other would rather die than disregard the primitive pact.
“You said all were not killed, Roof,” said Thandar, the ceremony over. “What do you mean?”
“All were not killed by the Great Nagoola,” replied the bad man. “Thurg was not killed, nor was she who was Thandar’s mate—she whom Thurg would have stolen.”
“What?” Thandar almost screamed the question. “Nadara is not dead?”
“Look,” said Roof, and he led the way to the foot of the cliff. “See!”
“Yes,” replied Thandar, “I had noticed that body, but what of it?”
“It was Thurg,” explained Roof. “He sought to reach your mate, who had taken refuge in that cave far above us. Then came some strange men who made a great noise with sticks and Thurg fell dead—the loud noise had killed him from a great distance. Then came the strange men and she whom you call Nadara went away with them.”
“In which direction?” cried Thandar. “Where did they take her?”
“They took her to the strange cliff in which they dwelt—the one in which they came. Never saw man such a thing as this cliff. It floated upon the face of the water. About its face were many tiny caves, but the people did not come out of these they came from the top of the cliff, and clambering down the sides floated ashore in hollow things of wood. On top of the cliff were two trees without leaves, and only very short upright branches. When the cliff went away black smoke came out of it from a short black stump of a tree between the two trees. It was a very wonderful thing to see; but the most wonderful of all were the noise-sticks that killed Thurg and Nagoola a long way off.”