It required no effort of imagination to recall the stories of The Thunder Voice. Such a frame must have housed lungs of a power far surpassing that of any ordinary human being. I could easily conjecture the vocal might this creature had possessed when this skeleton had housed a living organism.
The other object was a boat—of most unusual build.
It was constructed from rough slabs which had apparently been hewn from solid timbers with an ax. It was flat-bottomed, with square ends which sloped upward. The pieces were fastened together by wooden pegs driven through roughly cut holes.
I turned from the boat and, climbing the sloping floor, roved my light about as I continued my exploration. A little further along the floor under my feet became dry, and then the cave turned abruptly to the left. Just beyond this turn I stumbled over something.
It, too, was a skeleton!
Different in every particular from the first, however. Its living tenant had been fairly tall, and with a well-proportioned figure. The cave was quite dry here, and only a light dust covered the yellowed bones.
My interest quickened. There had been two tenants in this unknown cave! One, I felt sure, had been the son of Bartien Delloux—the creature with The Thunder Voice. But who had shared this dark cavern with him?
Inch by inch, I examined the floor, the walls, and even the roof of the cavern. There was little to be seen—some bones of small animals, the rusted blade of an axe, portions of rotted fur, and in a nook opening out from the main cave were some scattered fibers of decayed cloth.
Finally, when I was on the point of turning about to leave the place, I found something which fired me with renewed interest. It was a small bottle of flattish shape. The bottom was covered with dry, black, flaky particles—dried ink, I surmised.
In a crevasse of the rock I found a rotted leather bag, which fell to pieces at my touch. From it dropped several articles, but eagerly I seized upon one—an age-yellowed, thin, paper book; such as school-children, even to this day, use for writing exercises.