THE ABDUCTION OF NADARA
Cautiously Thurg crawled into the cave where Nadara slept upon her
couch of soft grasses, wrapped in the glossy pelt of Nagoola, the black
panther.
The hulking form of the beast-man blotted out the faint light that
filtered from the lesser darkness of the night without through the
jagged entrance to the cave.
All within was Stygian gloom.
Groping with his hands Thurg came at last upon a corner of the grassy
pallet. Softly he wormed inch by inch closer to the sleeper. Now his
fingers felt the thick fur of the panther skin.
Lightly, for so gross a thing, his touch followed the recumbent figure
of the girl until his giant paws felt the silky luxuriance of her raven
hair.
For an instant he paused. Then, quickly and silently, one great palm
clapped roughly over Nadara's mouth, while the other arm encircled her
waist, lifting her from her bed.
Awakened and terrified, Nadara struggled to free herself and to scream;
but the giant hand across her mouth effectually sealed her lips, while
the arm about her waist held her as firmly as might iron bands.
Thurg spoke no word, but as Nadara's hands came in contact with his
hairy breast and matted beard as she fought for freedom she guessed the
identity of her abductor, and shuddered.
Waiting only to assure himself that his hold upon his prisoner was
secure and that no trailing end of her robe might trip him in his
flight down the cliff face, Thurg commenced the descent.
Opposite the entrance to Thandar's cave Nadara redoubled her efforts to
free her mouth that she might scream aloud but once. Thurg, guessing
her desire, pressed his palm the tighter, and in a moment the two had
passed unnoticed to the ledge below.
Down the winding trail of the upper ledges Thurg's task was
comparatively easy--thanks to Thandar, but at the second ledge from the
bottom of the cliff he was compelled to take to the upper of the two
ladders which completed the way to the ground below.
And here it was necessary to remove his hand from Nadara's mouth. In a
low growl he warned her to silence with threats of instant death, then
he removed his hand from across her face, grasped the top of the ladder
and swung over the dangerous height with his burden under his arm.
For an instant Nadara was too paralyzed with terror to take advantage
of her opportunity, but just as Thurg set foot upon the ledge at the
bottom of the ladder she screamed aloud once.
Instantly Thurg's hand fell roughly across her lips. Brutally he shook
her, squeezing her body in his mighty grip until she gasped for breath,
and each minute expected to feel her ribs snap to the terrific strain.
For a moment Thurg stood silently upon the ledge, compressing the
tortured body of his victim and listening for signs of pursuit from
above.
Presently the agony of her suffering overcame Nadara--she swooned.
Thurg felt her form relax, and his flabby lips twisted to a hideous
grin.
The cliff was quiet--the girl's scream had not disturbed the slumbers
of her tribesmen. Thurg swung the ladder he had just descended over the
edge of the cliff below, and a moment later he stood at the bottom with
his burden.
Without noise he removed the ladder and the sapling that he had used in
his ascent, laying them upon the ground at the foot of the cliff. This
would halt, temporarily, any pursuit until the cave men could bring
other ladders from the higher levels, where they doubtless had them
hidden.
But no pursuit developed, and Thurg disappeared into the dark forest
with his prize.
For a long distance he carried her, his little pig eyes searching and
straining to right and left into the black night for the first sign
of savage beast. The half atrophied muscles of his little ears, still
responding to an almost dead instinct, strove to prick those misshapen
members forward that they might catch the first crackling of dead
leaves beneath the padded paw of the fanged night prowlers.
But the wood seemed dead. No living creature appeared to thwart the
beast-man's evil intent. Far behind him Thandar slept. Thurg grinned.
The moon broke through the clouds, splotching the ground all silver
green beneath the forest trees. Nadara awoke from her swoon. They were
in a little open glade. Instantly she recalled the happenings that
had immediately preceded her unconsciousness. In the moonlight she
recognized Thurg. He was smirking horribly down into her upturned face.
Thandar had often talked with her of religion. He had taught her of
his God, and now the girl thanked Him that Thurg was still too low
in the scale of evolution to have learned to kiss. To have had that
matted beard, those flabby, pendulous lips pressed to hers! It was too
horrible--she closed her eyes in disgust.
Thurg lowered her to her feet. With one hand he still clutched her
shoulder. She saw him standing there before her--his greedy, blood-shot
eyes devouring her. His awful lips shook and trembled as his hot breath
sucked quickly in and out in excited gasps.
She knew that the end was coming. Frantically she cast about her for
some means of defense or escape. Thurg was drawing her toward him.
Suddenly she drew back her clenched fist and struck him full in the
mouth, then, tearing herself from his grasp, she turned and fled.
But in a moment he was upon her. Seizing her roughly by the shoulders
he shook her viciously, hurling her to the ground.
The blood from his wounded lips dropped upon her face and throat.
From the distance came a deep toned, thunderous rumbling. Thurg raised
his head and listened. Again and again came that awesome sound.
"The Great Nagoola is coming to punish you," whispered Nadara.
Thurg still remained squatting beside her. She had ceased to fight, for
now she felt that a greater power than hers was intervening to save her.
The ground beneath them trembled, shook and then tossed frightfully.
The rumbling and the roaring became deafening. Thurg, his passion
frozen in the face of this new terror, rose to his feet. For a moment
there was a lull, then came another and more terrific shock.
The earth rose and fell sickeningly. Fissures opened, engulfing trees,
and then closed like hungry mouths gulping food long denied.
Thurg was thrown to the ground. Now he was terror stricken. He screamed
aloud in his fear.
Again there came a lull, and this time the beast-man leaped to his feet
and dashed away into the forest. Nadara was alone.
Presently the earth commenced to tremble again, and the voice of The
Great Nagoola rumbled across the world. Frightened animals scampered
past Nadara, fleeing in all directions. Little deer, foxes, squirrels
and other rodents in countless numbers scurried, terrified, about.
A great black panther and his mate trotted shoulder to shoulder into
the glade where Nadara still stood too bewildered to know which way to
fly.
They eyed her for a moment, as they paused in the moonlight, then
without a second glance they loped away into the brush. Directly behind
them came three deer.
Nadara realized that she had felt no fear of the panthers as she would
have under ordinary circumstances. Even the little deer ran with their
natural enemies. Every lesser fear was submerged in the overwhelming
terror of the earthquake.
Dawn was breaking in the east. The rumblings were diminishing, the
tremors at greater intervals and of lessening violence.
Nadara started to retrace her steps toward the village. Momentarily she
looked to see Thandar coming in search of her, but she came to the edge
of the forest and no sign of Thandar or another of her tribesmen had
come to cheer her.
At last she stepped into the open. Before her was the cliff. A cry
of anguish broke from her lips at the sight that met her eyes. Torn,
tortured and crumpled were the lofty crags that had been her home--the
home of the tribe of Thandar.
The overhanging cliff top had broken away and lay piled in a jagged
heap at the foot of the cliff. The caves had disappeared. The ledges
had crumbled before the titanic struggles of The Great Nagoola. All was
desolation and ruin.
She approached more closely. Here and there in the awful jumble of
shattered rock were wedged the crushed and mangled forms of men, women
and children.
Tears coursed down Nadara's cheeks. Sobs wracked her slender figure.
And Thandar! Where was he?
With utmost difficulty the girl picked her way aloft over the tumbled
debris. She could only guess at the former location of Thandar's cave,
but now no sign of cave remained--only the same blank waste of silent
stone.
Frantically she tugged and tore at massive heaps of sharp edged rock.
Her fingers were cut and bruised and bleeding. She called aloud the
name of her man, but there was no response.
It was late in the afternoon before, weak and exhausted, she gave up
her futile search. That night she slept in a crevice between two broken
boulders, and the next morning she set out in search of a cave where
she might live out the remainder of her lonely life in what safety and
meager comfort a lone girl could wring from this savage world.
For a week she wandered hither and thither only to find most of the
caves she had known in the past demolished as had been those of her
people.
At last she stumbled upon the very cliff which Thandar had chosen as
the permanent home of his people. Here the wrath of the earthquake
seemed to have been less severe, and Nadara found, high in the cliff's
face, a safe and comfortable cavern.
The last span to it required the use of a slender sapling, which she
could draw up after her, effectually barring the approach of Nagoola
and his people. To further protect herself against the chance of
wandering men the girl carried a quantity of small bits of rock to the
ledge beside the entrance to her cave.
Fruit and nuts and vegetables she took there too, and a great gourd of
water from the spring below. As she completed her last trip, and sat
resting upon the ledge, her eyes wandering over the landscape and out
across the distant ocean, she thought she saw something move in the
shadow of the trees across the open plain beneath her.
Could it have been a man? Nadara drew her sapling ladder to the ledge
beside her.
Thurg, fleeing from the wrath of The Great Nagoola, had come at
daybreak to the spot where his people had been camped, but there he
found no sign of them, only the ragged edges of a great fissure,
half-closed, that might have swallowed his entire tribe as he had seen
the fissures in the forest swallow many, many trees at a single bite.
For some time he sought for signs of his tribesmen, but without
success. Then, his fear of the earthquake allayed, he started back into
the forest to find the girl. For days he sought her. He came to the
ruins of the cliff that had housed her people, and there he discovered
signs that the girl had been there since the demolition of the cliff.
He saw the print of her dainty feet in the soft earth at the base of
the rocks--he saw how she had searched the debris for Thandar--he saw
her bed of grasses in the crevice between the two boulders, and then,
after diligent search, he found her spoor leading away to the east.
For many days he followed her until, at last, close by the sea, he come
to a level plain at the edge of a forest. Across the narrow plain rose
lofty cliffs--and what was that clambering aloft toward the dark mouth
of a cave?
Could it be a woman? Thurg's eyes narrowed as he peered intently toward
the cliff. Yes, it was a woman--it was _the_ woman--it was she he
sought, and, she was alone.
With a whoop of exultation Thurg broke from the forest into the plain,
running swiftly toward the cliff where Nadara crouched beside her
little pile of jagged missiles, prepared to once more battle with this
hideous monster for more than life.