Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/221

 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.