BUILDING THE BOAT
Two days after the earthquake that had saved Nadara from Thurg and
wiped out the people of the girl's tribe, a man moved feebly beneath
the tumbled debris from the roof top of his clogged cavern. It was
Thandar. The tons of rock that had toppled from above and buried
the entrance to his cave had passed him by unscathed, while the few
pounds shaken from the ceiling had stunned him into a long enduring
insensibility.
Slowly he regained consciousness, but it was a long time before he
could marshal his faculties to even a slight appreciation of the
catastrophe that had overwhelmed him. Then his first thought was of
Nadara. He crawled to what had once been the entrance of his cave. He
had not as yet linked the darkness to its real cause--he thought it
night. It had been night when he closed his eyes. How could he guess
that that had been three nights before, or all the cruel blows that
fate had struck him since he slept!
At the opening from the cave he met his first surprise and setback--the
way was blocked! What was the meaning of it? He tugged and pushed
weakly upon the mass that barred him from escape. Who had imprisoned
him? He recalled the vivid dream in which he had seen Nadara stolen
away by Thurg. The recollection sent him frantically at the pile of
shattered rock and loose debris which choked the doorway.
To his chagrin he found himself too weak to direct any long sustained
effort against the obstacle. It occurred to him that he must have been
injured. Whoever imprisoned him must first have beaten him. He felt of
his head. Yes, there was a great gash, but his touch told him that it
was not a new one. How long, then, had he been imprisoned? As he sat
pondering this thing he became aware of the gnawing of hunger and the
craving of thirst within his slowly awakening body. The sensations were
almost painful. So much so that they forced him to a realization of the
fact that he must have been without food or water for a considerable
time.
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 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 tunnelled 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 stuff
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 it 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 was 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 the living. With
the passage of time his grief grew more rather than less acute. As it
increased so too increased the horror of his loneliness. The 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 party from
the _Priscilla_.
One day as Thandar was returning from the beach where he often went
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 that 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 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, straight 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."
Not half of Roof's narrative did Thandar hear. Through his brain roared
and thundered a single mighty thought: Nadara lives! Nadara lives! Life
took on a new meaning to him now. He trembled at the thought of the
chances he had been taking. Now, indeed, must he live. He leaped up and
down, laughing and shouting. He threw his arms about the astonished
Roof, whirling the troglodyte about in a mad waltz. Nadara lives!
Nadara lives!
Once again the sun shone, the birds sang, nature was her old, happy,
carefree self. Nadara was alive and among civilized men. But then came
a doubt.
"Did Nadara go willingly with these strangers," he asked Roof, "or did
they take her by force?"
"They did not take her by force," replied Roof. "They talked with her
for a time, and then she took the hand of one of the men in hers,
stroking it, and he placed his arm about her. Afterward they walked
slowly to the edge of the great water where they got into the strange
things that had brought them to the land, and returned to their
floating cliff. Presently the smoke came out, as I have told you, and
the cliff went away toward the edge of the world. But they are all dead
now."
"What?" yelled Thandar.
"Yes, I saw the cliff sink, very slowly when it was a long way off,
until only the smoke was coming out of the water."
Thandar breathed a sigh of relief.
"Point," he said, "to the place where the cliff sank beneath the water."
Roof pointed almost due north.
"There," he said.
For days Thandar puzzled over the possible identity of the ship and
the men with whom Nadara had gone so willingly. Doubtless some kindly
mariner, hearing her story, had taken her home, away from the terrors
and the loneliness of this unhappy island. And now the man chafed to be
after her, that he might search the world for his lost love.
To wait for a ship appeared quite impossible to the impatient
Thandar, for he knew that a ship might never come. There was but one
alternative, and had Waldo Emerson been a less impractical man in the
world to which he had been born he would have cast aside that single
alternative as entirely beyond the pale of possibility. But Waldo was
only practical and wise in the savage ways of the primitive life to
which circumstance had forced him to revert. And so he decided upon
as foolhardy and hair-brained a venture as the mind of man might
conceive. It was no less a thing than to build a boat and set out upon
the broad Pacific in search of a civilized port or a vessel that might
bear him to such.
To Waldo it seemed quite practical. He realized of course that the
venture would be fraught with peril, but would it not be better to
die in an attempt to find his Nadara than to live on forever in the
hopelessness of this forgotten land?
And so he set to work to build a boat. He had no tools but his crude
knife and the razor the sailor of the _Sally Corwith_ had given
him, so it was quite impossible for him to construct a dug-out. The
possibilities that lie in fire did not occur to him. Finally he hit
upon what seemed the only feasible form of construction.
With his knife he cut long, pliant saplings, and lesser branches. These
he fashioned into the framework of a boat. Roof helped him, keenly
interested in this new work. The ribs were fastened to the keel and
gunwale by thongs of panther skin, and when the framework was completed
panther skins were stretched over it. The edges of the skin were sewn
together with threads of gut, as tightly as Thandar and Roof could pull
them.
A mast was rigged well forward, and another panther skin from which the
fur had been scraped was fitted as a sail, square rigged. For rudder
Thandar fashioned a long, slender sapling, looped at one end, and the
loop covered with skin laced tightly on. This, he figured, would serve
both as rudder and paddle, as necessity demanded.
At last all was done. Together Thandar and Roof carried the light,
crude skiff to the ocean. They waded out beyond the surf, and upon the
crest of a receding swell they launched the thing, Thandar leaping in
as it floated upon the water.
The sail was not taken along for this trial. Thandar merely wished to
know that this craft would float, and right side up. For a moment it
did so, until the sea rushing in at the loose seams filled it with
water.
Thandar and Roof had great difficulty in dragging it out again upon the
beach. Roof now would have given up, but not so Thandar. It is true
that he was slightly disheartened, for he had set great store upon the
success of his little vessel.
After they had carried the frail thing beyond high tide Thandar sat
down upon the ground and for an hour he did naught but stare at the
leaky craft. Then he arose and calling to Roof led him into the forest.
For a mile they walked, and then Thandar halted before a tree from the
side of which a thick and sticky stream was slowly oozing. Thandar
had brought along a gourd, and now with a small branch he commenced
transferring the mass from the side of the tree to the gourd. Roof
helped him. In an hour the gourd was filled. Then they returned to the
skiff.
Leaving the gourd there Thandar and Roof walked to a clump of heavy
jungle grasses not far from the cliff where their cave lay. Here
Thandar gathered a great armful of the yellow, ripened grass, telling
Roof to do likewise. This they took back to the skiff, where, by
rolling it assiduously between their hands and pounding it with stones
they reduced it to a mass of soft, tough fiber.
Now Thandar showed Roof how to twist this fiber into a loose, fluffy
rope, and when he had him well started he daubed the rope with the
rubbery fluid he had filched from the tree, and with a sharp stick
tucked it in every seam and crevice of the skiff.
It took the better part of two days to accomplish this, and when it was
done and the gourd empty, the two men returned to the tree and refilled
it. This time they built a fire upon their return to the skiff, Roof
spinning a hard wood splinter rapidly between toes and fingers in a
little mass of tinder that lay in a hollowed piece of wood. Presently a
thin spiral of smoke arose from the tinder, growing denser for a moment
until of a sudden it broke into flame.
The men piled twigs and branches upon the blaze until the fire was well
started. Then Thandar taking a ball of the viscous matter from the
gourd heated it in the flames, immediately daubing the melting mass
upon the outside of the skiff. In this way, slowly and with infinite
patience, the two at last succeeded in coating the entire outer surface
of the canoe with a waterproof substance that might defy the action of
water almost indefinitely.
For three days Thandar let the coating dry, and then the craft was
given another trial. The man's heart was in his throat as the canoe
floated upon the crest of a great wave and he leaped into it.
But a moment later he shouted in relief and delight--the thing floated
like a cork, nor was there the slightest leak discernible. For half an
hour Thandar paddled about the harbor, and then he returned for the
sail. This too, though rather heavy and awkward, worked admirably, and
the balance of the day he spent in sailing, even venturing out into the
ocean.
Much of the time he paddled, for Waldo Emerson knew more of the galleys
of ancient Greece than he did of sails or sailing, so that for the most
part he sailed with the wind, paddling when he wished to travel in
another direction. But, withal, his attempt filled him with delight,
and he could scarce wait to be off toward civilization and Nadara.
The next two days were spent in collecting food and water, which
Thandar packed in numerous gourds, sealing the mouths with the rubbery
substance such as he had used to waterproof his craft. The flesh of
wild hog, and deer, and bird he cut in narrow strips and dried over
a slow fire. In this work Roof assisted him, and at last all was in
readiness for the venture.
The day of his departure dawned bright and clear. A gentle south wind
gave promise of great speed toward the north. Thandar was wild with
hope and excitement. Roof was to accompany him, but at the last moment
the nerve of the troglodyte failed him, and he ran away and hid in the
forest.
It was just as well, thought Thandar, for now his provisions would last
twice as long. And so he set out upon his perilous adventure, braving
the mighty Pacific in a frail and unseaworthy cockle-shell with all the
assurance and confidence that is ever born of ignorance.