Other laws he made--good laws--which even these primitive people could
see were good. It was quite late when the last of them crawled into
his comfortless cave to dream of large, airy rooms built of the trees
of the forest; of good food in plenty just before the rains as well as
after; of security from the periodic raids of the "bad men."
Thandar and Nadara were the last to go. Together they sat upon a
narrow ledge before Nadara's cave, the moonlight falling upon their
glistening, naked shoulders, while they talked and dreamed together of
the future.
Thandar had been talking of the wonderful plans which seemed to fill
his whole mind--of the future of the tribe--of the great strides
toward civilization they could make in a few brief years if they could
but be made to follow the simple plans he had in mind.
"Why," he said, "in ten years they should have bridged a gulf that it
must have required ages for our ancestors to span."
"And you are planning ten years ahead, Thandar," she asked, "when only
yesterday you were saying that once beside the sea you hoped it would
be but a short time before we might sight a passing vessel that would
bear us away to your civilization? Must we wait ten years, Thandar?"
"I am planning for them," he replied. "We may not be here to witness
the changes; but I wish to start them upon the road, and when we go I
shall see to it that a king is chosen in my place who has the courage
and the desire to carry out my plans.
"Yet," he added, musingly, "it would be splendid could we but return
to complete our work. Never, Nadara, have I performed a single
constructive act for the benefit of my fellow man, but now I see an
opportunity to do something, however small it may seem, to--what was
that?"
A low rumbling muttered threateningly out of the west. Deep and ominous
it sounded, yet so low that it failed to awaken any member of the
sleeping tribe.
Before either could again speak there came a slight trembling of the
earth beneath them, scarcely sufficient to have been noticeable had it
not been preceded by the distant grumbling of the earth's bowels.
The two upon the moonlit ledge came to their feet, and Nadara drew
close to Thandar, the man's arm encircling her shoulders protectingly.
"The Great Nagoola," she whispered. "Again he seeks to escape."
"What do you mean?" asked Thandar. "It is an earthquake--distant and
quite harmless to us."
"No, it is The Great Nagoola," insisted Nadara. "Long time ago, when
our fathers' fathers were yet unborn, The Great Nagoola roamed the land
devouring all that chanced to come in his way--men, beasts, birds,
everything.
"One day my people came upon him sleeping in a deep gorge between two
mountains. They were mighty men in those days, and when they saw their
great enemy asleep there in the gorge half of them went upon one side
and half upon the other, and they pushed the two mountains over into
the gorge upon the sleeping beast, imprisoning him there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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