Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs

Here***y (continue)
The girl pointed to the photograph and then to the miniature and then to him, as though to indicate that she thought the likenesses were of him, but he only shook his head, and then shrugging his great shoulders, he took the photograph from her and having carefully rewrapped it, placed it again in the bottom of his quiver.
For a few moments he sat in silence, his eyes bent upon the ground, while Jane held the little locket in her hand, turning it over and over in an endeavor to find some further clue that might lead to the identity of its original owner.
At length a simple explanation occurred to her.
The locket had belonged to Lord Greystoke, and the likenesses were of himself and Lady Alice.
This wild creature had simply found it in the cabin by the beach. How stupid of her not to have thought of that solution before.
But to account for the strange likeness between Lord Greystoke and this forest god--that was quite beyond her, and it is not strange that she could not imagine that this naked savage was indeed an English nobleman.
At length Tarzan looked up to watch the girl as she examined the locket. He could not fathom the meaning of the faces within, but he could read the interest and fascination upon the face of the live young creature by his side.
She noticed that he was watching her and thinking that he wished his ornament again she held it out to him. He took it from her and taking the chain in his two hands he placed it about her neck, smiling at her expression of surprise at his unexpected gift.


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Jane shook her head vehemently and would have removed the golden links from about her throat, but Tarzan would not let her. Taking her hands in his, when she insisted upon it, he held them tightly to prevent her.
At last she desisted and with a little laugh raised the locket to her lips.
Tarzan did not know precisely what she meant, but he guessed correctly that it was her way of acknowledging the gift, and so he rose, and taking the locket in his hand, stooped gravely like some courtier of old, and pressed his lips upon it where hers had rested.
It was a stately and gallant little compliment performed with the grace and dignity of utter unconsciousness of self. It was the hall-mark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an here***ary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate.
It was growing dark now, and so they ate again of the fruit which was both food and drink for them; then Tarzan rose, and leading Jane to the little bower he had erected, motioned her to go within.
For the first time in hours a feeling of fear swept over her, and Tarzan felt her draw away as though shrinking from him.
Contact with this girl for half a day had left a very diferent Tarzan from the one on whom the morning's sun had risen.

Now, in every fiber of his being, here***y spoke louder than training.
He had not in one swift transition become a polished gentleman from a savage ape-man, but at last the instincts of the former predominated, and over all was the desire to please the woman he loved, and to appear well in her eyes.
So Tarzan of the Apes did the only thing he knew to assure Jane of her safety. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to her hilt first, again motioning her into the bower.
The girl understood, and taking the long knife she entered and lay down upon the soft grasses while Tarzan of the Apes stretched himself upon the ground across the entrance.
And thus the rising sun found them in the morning.
When Jane awoke, she did not at first recall the strange events of the preceding day, and so she wondered at her odd surroundings--the little leafy bower, the soft grasses of her bed, the unfamiliar prospect from the opening at her feet.
Slowly the circumstances of her position crept one by one into her mind. And then a great wonderment arose in her heart--a mighty wave of thankfulness and gratitude that though she had been in such terrible danger, yet she was unharmed.
She moved to the entrance of the shelter to look for Tarzan. He was gone; but this time no fear assailed her for she knew that he would return.
In the grass at the entrance to her bower she saw the imprint of his body where he had lain all night to guard her. She knew that the fact that he had been there was all that had permitted her to sleep in such peaceful security.

With him near, who could entertain fear? She wondered if there was another man on earth with whom a girl could feel so safe in the heart of this savage African jungle. Even the lions and panthers had no fears for her now.
She looked up to see his lithe form drop softly from a near-by tree. As he caught her eyes upon him his face lighted with that frank and radiant smile that had won her confidence the day before.
As he approached her Jane's heart beat faster and her eyes brightened as they had never done before at the approach of any man.
He had again been gathering fruit and this he laid at the entrance of her bower. Once more they sat down together to eat.
Jane commenced to wonder what his plans were. Would he take her back to the beach or would he keep her here? Suddenly she realized that the matter did not seem to give her much concern. Could it be that she did not care!
She began to comprehend, also, that she was entirely contented sitting here by the side of this smiling giant eating delicious fruit in a sylvan paradise far within the remote depths of an African jungle--that she was contented and very happy.

She could not understand it. Her reason told her that she should be torn by wild anxieties, weighted by dread fears, cast down by gloomy forebodings; but instead, her heart was singing and she was smiling into the answering face of the man beside her.
When they had finished their breakfast Tarzan went to her bower and recovered his knife. The girl had entirely forgotten it. She realized that it was because she had forgotten the fear that prompted her to accept it.
Motioning her to follow, Tarzan walked toward the trees at the edge of the arena, and taking her in one strong arm swung to the branches above.
The girl knew that he was taking her back to her people, and she could not understand the sudden feeling of loneliness and sorrow which crept over her.
For hours they swung slowly along.
Tarzan of the Apes did not hurry. He tried to draw out the sweet pleasure of that journey with those dear arms about his neck as long as possible, and so he went far south of the direct route to the beach.
Several times they halted for brief rests, which Tarzan did not need, and at noon they stopped for an hour at a little brook, where they quenched their thirst, and ate.
So it was nearly sunset when they came to the clearing, and Tarzan, dropping to the ground beside a great tree, parted the tall jungle grass and pointed out the little cabin to her.
She took him by the hand to lead him to it, that she might tell her father that this man had saved her from death and worse than death, that he had watched over her as carefully as a mother might have done.

But again the timi***y of the wild thing in the face of human habitation swept over Tarzan of the Apes. He drew back, shaking his head.
The girl came close to him, looking up with pleading eyes. Somehow she could not bear the thought of his going back into the terrible jungle alone.
Still he shook his head, and finally he drew her to him very gently and stooped to kiss her, but first he looked into her eyes and waited to learn if she were pleased, or if she would repulse him.
Just an instant the girl hesitated, and then she realized the truth, and throwing her arms about his neck she drew his face to hers and kissed him--unashamed.
"I love you--I love you," she murmured.
From far in the distance came the faint sound of many guns. Tarzan and Jane raised their heads.
From the cabin came Mr. Philander and Esmeralda.
From where Tarzan and the girl stood they could not see the two vessels lying at anchor in the harbor.
Tarzan pointed toward the sounds, touched his breast and pointed again. She understood. He was going, and something told her that it was because he thought her people were in danger.
Again he kissed her.

"Come back to me," she whispered. "I shall wait for you--always."
He was gone--and Jane turned to walk across the clearing to the cabin.
Mr. Philander was the first to see her. It was dusk and Mr. Philander was very near sighted.
"Quickly, Esmeralda!" he cried. "Let us seek safety within; it is a lioness. Bless me!"
Esmeralda did not bother to verify Mr. Philander's vision. His tone was enough. She was within the cabin and had slammed and bolted the door before he had finished pronouncing her name. The "Bless me" was startled out of Mr. Philander by the discovery that Esmeralda, in the exuberance of her haste, had fastened him upon the same side of the door as was the close-approaching lioness.
He beat furiously upon the heavy portal.
"Esmeralda! Esmeralda!" he shrieked. "Let me in. I am being devoured by a lion."
Esmeralda thought that the noise upon the door was made by the lioness in her attempts to pursue her, so, after her custom, she fainted.
Mr. Philander cast a frightened glance behind him.
Horrors! The thing was quite close now. He tried to scramble up the side of the cabin, and succeeded in catching a fleeting hold upon the thatched roof.
For a moment he hung there, clawing with his feet like a cat on a clothesline, but presently a piece of the thatch came away, and Mr. Philander, preceding it, was precipitated upon his back.
At the instant he fell a remarkable item of natural history leaped to his mind. If one feigns death lions and lionesses are supposed to ignore one, according to Mr. Philander's faulty memory.
So Mr. Philander lay as he had fallen, frozen into the horrid semblance of death. As his arms and legs had been extended stiffly upward as he came to earth upon his back the attitude of death was anything but impressive.

Jane had been watching his antics in mild-eyed surprise. Now she laughed--a little choking gurgle of a laugh; but it was enough. Mr. Philander rolled over upon his side and peered about. At length he discovered her.
"Jane!" he cried. "Jane Porter. Bless me!"
He scrambled to his feet and rushed toward her. He could not believe that it was she, and alive.
"Bless me!" Where did you come from? Where in the world have you been? How--"
"Mercy, Mr. Philander," interrupted the girl, "I can never remember so many questions."
"Well, well," said Mr. Philander. "Bless me! I am so filled with surprise and exuberant delight at seeing you safe and well again that I scarcely know what I am saying, really. But come, tell me all that has happened to you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To really live, you must almost die ...

Nothing's gonna change my lies for you

Chapter 21. The Village of Torture
As the little expe***ion of sailors toiled through the dense jungle searching for signs of Jane Porter, the futility of their venture became more and more apparent, but the grief of the old man and the hopeless eyes of the young Englishman prevented the kind hearted D'Arnot from turning back.
He thought that there might be a bare possibility of finding her body, or the remains of it, for he was positive that she had been devoured by some beast of prey. He deployed his men into a skirmish line from the point where Esmeralda had been found, and in this extended formation they pushed their way, sweating and panting, through the tangled vines and creepers. It was slow work. Noon found them but a few miles inland. They halted for a brief rest then, and after pushing on for a short distance further one of the men discovered a well-marked trail.
It was an old elephant track, and D'Arnot after consulting with Professor Porter and Clayton decided to follow it.
The path wound through the jungle in a northeasterly direction, and along it the column moved in single file.
Lieutenant D'Arnot was in the lead and moving at a quick pace, for the trail was comparatively open. Immediately behind him came Professor Porter, but as he could not keep pace with the younger man D'Arnot was a hundred yards in advance when suddenly a half dozen black warriors arose about him.
D'Arnot gave a warning shout to his column as the blacks closed on him, but before he could draw his revolver he had been pinioned and dragged into the jungle.
His cry had alarmed the sailors and a dozen of them sprang forward past Professor Porter, running up the trail to their officer's aid.

They did not know the cause of his outcry, only that it was a warning of danger ahead. They had rushed past the spot where D'Arnot had been seized when a spear hurled from the jungle transfixed one of the men, and then a volley of arrows fell among them.
Raising their rifles they fired into the underbrush in the direction from which the missiles had come.
By this time the balance of the party had come up, and volley after volley was fired toward the concealed foe. It was these shots that Tarzan and Jane Porter had heard.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who had been bringing up the rear of the column, now came running to the scene, and on hearing the details of the ambush ordered the men to follow him, and plunged into the tangled vegetation.
In an instant they were in a hand-to-hand fight with some fifty black warriors of Mbonga's village. Arrows and bullets flew thick and fast.
Queer African knives and French gun butts mingled for a moment in savage and bloody duels, but soon the natives fled into the jungle, leaving the Frenchmen to count their losses.
Four of the twenty were dead, a dozen others were wounded, and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing. Night was falling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doubly worse when they could not even find the elephant trail which they had been following.

There was but one thing to do, make camp where they were until daylight. Lieutenant Charpentier ordered a clearing made and a circular abatis of underbrush constructed about the camp.
This work was not completed until long after dark, the men building a huge fire in the center of the clearing to give them light to work by.
When all was safe as possible against attack of wild beasts and savage men, Lieutenant Charpentier placed sentries about the little camp and the tired and hungry men threw themselves upon the ground to sleep.
The groans of the wounded, mingled with the roaring and growling of the great beasts which the noise and firelight had attracted, kept sleep, except in its most fitful form, from the tired eyes. It was a sad and hungry party that lay through the long night praying for dawn.
The blacks who had seized D'Arnot had not waited to participate in the fight which followed, but instead had dragged their prisoner a little way through the jungle and then struck the trail further on beyond the scene of the fighting in which their fellows were engaged.
They hurried him along, the sounds of battle growing fainter and fainter as they drew away from the contestants until there suddenly broke upon D'Arnot's vision a good-sized clearing at one end of which stood a thatched and palisaded village.
It was now dusk, but the watchers at the gate saw the approaching trio and distinguished one as a prisoner ere they reached the portals.
A cry went up within the palisade. A great throng of women and children rushed out to meet the party.
And then began for the French officer the most terrifying experience which man can encounter upon earth--the reception of a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals.

To add to the fiendishness of their cruel savagery was the poignant memory of still crueler barbarities practiced upon them and theirs by the white officers of that arch hypocrite, Leopold II of Belgium, because of whose atrocities they had fled the Congo Free State--a pitiful remnant of what once had been a mighty tribe.
They fell upon D'Arnot tooth and nail, beating him with sticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands. Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the merciless blows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But not once did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silent prayer that he be quickly delivered from his torture.
But the death he prayed for was not to be so easily had. Soon the warriors beat the women away from their prisoner. He was to be saved for nobler sport than this, and the first wave of their passion having subsided they contented themselves with crying out taunts and insults and spitting upon him.
Presently they reached the center of the village. There D'Arnot was bound securely to the great post from which no live man had ever been released.
A number of the women scattered to their several huts to fetch pots and water, while others built a row of fires on which portions of the feast were to be boiled while the balance would be slowly dried in strips for future use, as they expected the other warriors to return with many prisoners. The festivities were delayed awaiting the return of the warriors who had remained to engage in the skirmish with the white men, so that it was quite late when all were in the village, and the dance of death commenced to circle around the doomed officer.

Half fainting from pain and exhaustion, D'Arnot watched from beneath half-closed lids what seemed but the vagary of delirium, or some horrid nightmare from which he must soon awake.
The bestial faces, daubed with color--the huge mouths and flabby hanging lips--the yellow teeth, sharp filed--the rolling, demon eyes--the shining naked bodies--the cruel spears. Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth--he must indeed be dreaming.
The savage, whirling bodies circled nearer. Now a spear sprang forth and touched his arm. The sharp pain and the feel of hot, trickling blood assured him of the awful reality of his hopeless position.
Another spear and then another touched him. He closed his eyes and held his teeth firm set--he would not cry out.
He was a soldier of France, and he would teach these beasts how an officer and a gentleman died.
Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate the story of those distant shots. With Jane Porter's kisses still warm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapi***y through the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga.
He was not interested in the location of the encounter, for he judged that that would soon be over. Those who were killed he could not aid, those who escaped would not need his assistance.
It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped that he hastened. And he knew that he would find them by the great post in the center of Mbonga village.
Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga's black raiding parties return from the northward with prisoners, and always were the same scenes enacted about that grim stake, beneath the flaring light of many fires.

He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time before consummating the fiendish purpose of their captures. He doubted that he would arrive in time to do more than avenge.
On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high along the upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted the dizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of the tree tops.
Presently he caught the reflection of a distant blaze. It lay to the right of his path. It must be the light from the camp fire the two men had built before they were attacked--Tarzan knew nothing of the presence of the sailors.
So sure was Tarzan of his jungle knowledge that he did not turn from his course, but passed the glare at a distance of a half mile. It was the camp fire of the Frenchmen.
In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees above Mbonga's village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he? He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yet the black warriors were but pricking it.
Tarzan knew their customs. The death blow had not been struck. He could tell almost to a minute how far the dance had gone.
In another instant Mbonga's knife would sever one of the victim's ears--that would mark the beginning of the end, for very shortly after only a writhing mass of mutilated flesh would remain.

There would still be life in it, but death then would be the only charity it craved.
The stake stood forty feet from the nearest tree. Tarzan coiled his rope. Then there rose suddenly above the fiendish cries of the dancing demons the awful challenge of the ape-man.
The dancers halted as though turned to stone.
The rope sped with singing whir high above the heads of the blacks. It was quite invisible in the flaring lights of the camp fires.
D'Arnot opened his eyes. A huge black, standing directly before him, lunged backward as though felled by an invisible hand.
Struggling and shrieking, his body, rolling from side to side, moved quickly toward the shadows beneath the trees.
The blacks, their eyes protruding in horror, watched spellbound.
Once beneath the trees, the body rose straight into the air, and as it disappeared into the foliage above, the terrified negroes, screaming with fright, broke into a mad race for the village gate.
D'Arnot was left alone.
He was a brave man, but he had felt the short hairs bristle upon the nape of his neck when that uncanny cry rose upon the air.
As the writhing body of the black soared, as though by unearthly power, into the dense foliage of the forest, D'Arnot felt an icy shiver run along his spine, as though death had risen from a dark grave and laid a cold and clammy finger on his flesh.
As D'Arnot watched the spot where the body had entered the tree he heard the sounds of movement there.

The branches swayed as though under the weight of a man's body--there was a crash and the black came sprawling to earth again,--to lie very quietly where he had fallen.
Immediately after him came a white body, but this one alighted erect.
D'Arnot saw a clean-limbed young giant emerge from the shadows into the firelight and come quickly toward him.
What could it mean? Who could it be? Some new creature of torture and destruction, doubtless.
D'Arnot waited. His eyes never left the face of the advancing man. Nor did the other's frank, clear eyes waver beneath D'Arnot's fixed gaze.
D'Arnot was reassured, but still without much hope, though he felt that that face could not mask a cruel heart.
Without a word Tarzan of the Apes cut the bonds which held the Frenchman. Weak from suffering and loss of blood, he would have fallen but for the strong arm that caught him.
He felt himself lifted from the ground. There was a sensation as of flying, and then he lost consciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To really live, you must almost die ...

Nothing's gonna change my lies for you

Chapter 22. The Search Party
When dawn broke upon the little camp of Frenchmen in the heart of the jungle it found a sad and disheartened group.
As soon as it was light enough to see their surroundings Lieutenant Charpentier sent men in groups of three in several directions to locate the trail, and in ten minutes it was found and the expe***ion was hurrying back toward the beach.
It was slow work, for they bore the bodies of six dead men, two more having succumbed during the night, and several of those who were wounded required support to move even very slowly.
Charpentier had decided to return to camp for reinforcements, and then make an attempt to track down the natives and rescue D'Arnot.
It was late in the afternoon when the exhausted men reached the clearing by the beach, but for two of them the return brought so great a happiness that all their suffering and heartbreaking grief was forgotten on the instant.
As the little party emerged from the jungle the first person that Professor Porter and Cecil Clayton saw was Jane, standing by the cabin door.
With a little cry of joy and relief she ran forward to greet them, throwing her arms about her father's neck and bursting into tears for the first time since they had been cast upon this hideous and adventurous shore.
Professor Porter strove manfully *****ppress his own emotions, but the strain upon his nerves and weakened vitality were too much for him, and at length, burying his old face in the girl's shoulder, he sobbed quietly like a tired child.
Jane led him toward the cabin, and the Frenchmen turned toward the beach from which several of their fellows were advancing to meet them.

Clayton, wishing to leave father and daughter alone, joined the sailors and remained talking with the officers until their boat pulled away toward the cruiser whither Lieutenant Charpentier was bound to report the unhappy outcome of his adventure.
Then Clayton turned back slowly toward the cabin. His heart was filled with happiness. The woman he loved was safe.
He wondered by what manner of miracle she had been spared. To see her alive seemed almost unbelievable.
As he approached the cabin he saw Jane coming out. When she saw him she hurried forward to meet him.
"Jane!" he cried, "God has been good to us, indeed. Tell me how you escaped--what form Providence took to save you for--us."
He had never before called her by her given name. Forty-eight hours before it would have suffused Jane with a soft glow of pleasure to have heard that name from Clayton's lips--now it frightened her.
"Mr. Clayton," she said quietly, extending her hand, "first let me thank you for your chivalrous loyalty to my dear father. He has told me how noble and self-sacrificing you have been. How can we repay you!"
Clayton noticed that she did not return his familiar salutation, but he felt no misgivings on that score. She had been through so much. This was no time to force his love upon her, he quickly realized.
"I am already repaid," he said. "Just to see you and Professor Porter both safe, well, and together again. I do not think that I could much longer have endured the pathos of his quiet and uncomplaining grief.

"It was the saddest experience of my life, Miss Porter; and then, added to it, there was my own grief--the greatest I have ever known. But his was so hopeless--his was pitiful. It taught me that no love, not even that of a man for his wife may be so deep and terrible and self-sacrificing as the love of a father for his daughter."
The girl bowed her head. There was a question she wanted to ask, but it seemed almost sacrilegious in the face of the love of these two men and the terrible suffering they had endured while she sat laughing and happy beside a godlike creature of the forest, eating delicious fruits and looking with eyes of love into answering eyes.
But love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger, so she asked her question.
"Where is the forest man who went to rescue you? Why did he not return?"
"I do not understand," said Clayton. "Whom do you mean?"
"He who has saved each of us--who saved me from the gorilla."
"Oh," cried Clayton, in surprise. "It was he who rescued you? You have not told me anything of your adventure, you know."
"But the wood man," she urged. "Have you not seen him? When we heard the shots in the jungle, very faint and far away, he left me. We had just reached the clearing, and he hurried off in the direction of the fighting. I know he went to aid you."
Her tone was almost pleading--her manner tense with suppressed emotion. Clayton could not but notice it, and he wondered, vaguely, why she was so deeply moved--so anxious to know the whereabouts of this strange creature.

Yet a feeling of apprehension of some impending sorrow haunted him, and in his breast, unknown to himself, was implanted the first germ of jealousy and suspicion of the ape-man, to whom he owed his life.
"We did not see him," he replied quietly. "He did not join us." And then after a moment of thoughtful pause: "Possibly he joined his own tribe--the men who attacked us." He did not know why he had said it, for he did not believe it.
The girl looked at him wide eyed for a moment.
"No!" she exclaimed vehemently, much too vehemently he thought. "It could not be. They were savages."
Clayton looked puzzled.
"He is a strange, half-savage creature of the jungle, Miss Porter. We know nothing of him. He neither speaks nor understands any European tongue--and his ornaments and weapons are those of the West Coast savages."
Clayton was speaking rapidly.
"There are no other human beings than savages within hundreds of miles, Miss Porter. He must belong to the tribes which attacked us, or to some other equally savage--he may even be a cannibal."
Jane blanched.
"I will not believe it," she half whispered. "It is not true. You shall see," she said, addressing Clayton, "that he will come back and that he will prove that you are wrong. You do not know him as I do. I tell you that he is a gentleman."

Clayton was a generous and chivalrous man, but something in the girl's breathless defense of the forest man stirred him to unreasoning jealousy, so that for the instant he forgot all that they owed to this wild demi-god, and he answered her with a half sneer upon his lip.
"Possibly you are right, Miss Porter," he said, "but I do not think that any of us need worry about our carrion-eating acquaintance. The chances are that he is some half-demented castaway who will forget us more quickly, but no more surely, than we shall forget him. He is only a beast of the jungle, Miss Porter."
The girl did not answer, but she felt her heart shrivel within her.
She knew that Clayton spoke merely what he thought, and for the first time she began to analyze the structure which supported her newfound love, and *****bject its object to a critical examination.
Slowly she turned and walked back to the cabin. She tried to imagine her wood-god by her side in the saloon of an ocean liner. She saw him eating with his hands, tearing his food like a beast of prey, and wiping his greasy fingers upon his thighs. She shuddered.
She saw him as she introduced him to her friends--uncouth, illiterate--a boor; and the girl winced.
She had reached her room now, and as she sat upon the edge of her bed of ferns and grasses, with one hand resting upon her rising and falling bosom, she felt the hard outlines of the man's locket.
She drew it out, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment with tear-blurred eyes bent upon it. Then she raised it to her lips, and crushing it there buried her face in the soft ferns, sobbing.

"Beast?" she murmured. "Then God make me a beast; for, man or beast, I am yours."
She did not see Clayton again that day. Esmeralda brought her supper to her, and she sent word to her father that she was suffering from the reaction following her adventure.
The next morning Clayton left early with the relief expe***ion in search of Lieutenant D'Arnot. There were two hundred armed men this time, with ten officers and two surgeons, and provisions for a week.
They carried bedding and hammocks, the latter for transporting their sick and wounded.
It was a determined and angry company--a punitive expe***ion as well as one of relief. They reached the sight of the skirmish of the previous expe***ion shortly after noon, for they were now traveling a known trail and no time was lost in exploring.
From there on the elephant-track led straight to Mbonga's village. It was but two o'clock when the head of the column halted upon the edge of the clearing.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who was in command, immediately sent a portion of his force through the jungle to the opposite side of the village. Another detachment was dispatched to a point before the village gate, while he remained with the balance upon the south side of the clearing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To really live, you must almost die ...

Nothing's gonna change my lies for you

The Search Party (continue)
It was arranged that the party which was to take its position to the north, and which would be the last to gain its station should commence the assault, and that their opening volley should be the signal for a concerted rush from all sides in an attempt to carry the village by storm at the first charge.
For half an hour the men with Lieutenant Charpentier crouched in the dense foliage of the jungle, waiting the signal. To them it seemed like hours. They could see natives in the fields, and others moving in and out of the village gate.
At length the signal came--a sharp rattle of musketry, and like one man, an answering volley tore from the jungle to the west and to the south.
The natives in the field dropped their implements and broke madly for the palisade. The French bullets mowed them down, and the French sailors bounded over their prostrate bodies straight for the village gate.
So sudden and unexpected the assault had been that the whites reached the gates before the frightened natives could bar them, and in another minute the village street was filled with armed men fighting hand to hand in an inextricable tangle.
For a few moments the blacks held their ground within the entrance to the street, but the revolvers, rifles and cutlasses of the Frenchmen crumpled the native spearmen and struck down the black archers with their bows halfdrawn.
Soon the battle turned to a wild rout, and then to a grim massacre; for the French sailors had seen bits of D'Arnot's uniform upon several of the black warriors who opposed them.

They spared the children and those of the women whom they were not forced to kill in self-defense, but when at length they stopped, parting, blood covered and sweating, it was because there lived to oppose them no single warrior of all the savage village of Mbonga.
Carefully they ransacked every hut and corner of the village, but no sign of D'Arnot could they find. They questioned the prisoners by signs, and finally one of the sailors who had served in the French Congo found that he could make them understand the bastard tongue that passes for language between the whites and the more degraded tribes of the coast, but even then they could learn nothing definite regarding the fate of D'Arnot.
Only excited gestures and expressions of fear could they obtain in response to their inquiries concerning their fellow; and at last they became convinced that these were but evidences of the guilt of these demons who had slaughtered and eaten their comrade two nights before.
At length all hope left them, and they prepared to camp for the night within the village. The prisoners were herded into three huts where they were heavily guarded. Sentries were posted at the barred gates, and finally the village was wrapped in the silence of slumber, except for the wailing of the native women for their dead.
The next morning they set out upon the return march. Their original intention had been to burn the village, but this idea was abandoned and the prisoners were left behind, weeping and moaning, but with roofs to cover them and a palisade for refuge from the beasts of the jungle.

Slowly the expe***ion retraced its steps of the preceding day. Ten loaded hammocks retarded its pace. In eight of them lay the more seriously wounded, while two swung beneath the weight of the dead.
Clayton and Lieutenant Charpentier brought up the rear of the column; the Englishman silent in respect for the other's grief, for D'Arnot and Charpentier had been inseparable friends since boyhood.
Clayton could not but realize that the Frenchman felt his grief the more keenly because D'Arnot's sacrifice had been so futile, since Jane had been rescued before D'Arnot had fallen into the hands of the savages, and again because the service in which he had lost his life had been outside his duty and for strangers and aliens; but when he spoke of it to Lieutenant Charpentier, the latter shook his head.
"No, Monsieur," he said, "D'Arnot would have chosen to die thus. I only grieve that I could not have died for him, or at least with him. I wish that you could have known him better, Monsieur. He was indeed an officer and a gentleman--a title conferred on many, but deserved by so few.
"He did not die futilely, for his death in the cause of a strange American girl will make us, his comrades, face our ends the more bravely, however they may come to us."
Clayton did not reply, but within him rose a new respect for Frenchmen which remained undimmed ever after.

It was quite late when they reached the cabin by the beach. A single shot before they emerged from the jungle had announced to those in camp as well as on the ship that the expe***ion had been too late--for it had been prearranged that when they came within a mile or two of camp one shot was to be fired to denote failure, or three for success, while two would have indicated that they had found no sign of either D'Arnot or his black captors.
So it was a solemn party that awaited their coming, and few words were spoken as the dead and wounded men were tenderly placed in boats and rowed silently toward the cruiser.
Clayton, exhausted from his five days of laborious marching through the jungle and from the effects of his two battles with the blacks, turned toward the cabin to seek a mouthful of food and then the comparative ease of his bed of grasses after two nights in the jungle.
By the cabin door stood Jane.
"The poor lieutenant?" she asked. "Did you find no trace of him?"
"We were too late, Miss Porter," he replied sadly.
"Tell me. What had happened?" she asked.
"I cannot, Miss Porter, it is too horrible."
"You do not mean that they had tortured him?" she whispered.
"We do not know what they did to him BEFORE they killed him," he answered, his face drawn with fatigue and the sorrow he felt for poor D'Arnot and he emphasized the word before.

"BEFORE they killed him! What do you mean? They are not--? They are not--?"
She was thinking of what Clayton had said of the forest man's probable relationship to this tribe and she could not frame the awful word.
"Yes, Miss Porter, they were--cannibals," he said, almost bitterly, for to him too had suddenly come the thought of the forest man, and the strange, unaccountable jealousy he had felt two days before swept over him once more.
And then in sudden brutality that was as unlike Clayton as courteous consideration is unlike an ape, he blurted out:
"When your forest god left you he was doubtless hurrying to the feast."
He was sorry ere the words were spoken though he did not know how cruelly they had cut the girl. His regret was for his baseless disloyalty to one who had saved the lives of every member of his party, and offered harm to none.
The girl's head went high.
"There could be but one suitable reply to your assertion, Mr. Clayton," she said icily, "and I regret that I am not a man, that I might make it." She turned quickly and entered the cabin.
Clayton was an Englishman, so the girl had passed quite out of sight before he deduced what reply a man would have made.
"Upon my word," he said ruefully, "she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it," he added thoughtfully. "Clayton, my boy, I know you are tired out and unstrung, but that's no reason why you should make an ass of yourself. You'd better go to bed."

But before he did so he called gently to Jane upon the opposite side of the sailcloth partition, for he wished to apologize, but he might as well have addressed the Sphinx. Then he wrote upon a piece of paper and shoved it beneath the partition.
Jane saw the little note and ignored it, for she was very angry and hurt and mortified, but--she was a woman, and so eventually she picked it up and read it.
MY DEAR MISS PORTER:
I had no reason to insinuate what I did. My only excuse is that my nerves must be unstrung--which is no excuse at all.
Please try and think that I did not say it. I am very sorry. I would not have hurt YOU, above all others in the world. Say that you forgive me. WM. CECIL CLAYTON.
"He did think it or he never would have said it," reasoned the girl, "but it cannot be true--oh, I know it is not true!"
One sentence in the letter frightened her: "I would not have hurt YOU above all others in the world."
A week ago that sentence would have filled her with delight, now it depressed her.
She wished she had never met Clayton. She was sorry that she had ever seen the forest god. No, she was glad. And there was that other note she had found in the grass before the cabin the day after her return from the jungle, the love note signed by Tarzan of the Apes.

Who could be this new suitor? If he were another of the wild denizens of this terrible forest what might he not do to claim her?
"Esmeralda! Wake up," she cried.
"You make me so irritable, sleeping there peacefully when you know perfectly well that the world is filled with sorrow."
"Gaberelle!" screamed Esmeralda, sitting up. "What is it now? A hipponocerous? Where is he, Miss Jane?"
"Nonsense, Esmeralda, there is nothing. Go back to sleep. You are bad enough asleep, but you are infinitely worse awake."
"Yes honey, but what's the matter with you, precious? You acts sort of disgranulated this evening."
"Oh, Esmeralda, I'm just plain ugly to-night," said the girl. "Don't pay any attention to me--that's a dear."
"Yes, honey; now you go right to sleep. Your nerves are all on edge. What with all these ripotamuses and man eating geniuses that Mister Philander been telling about--Lord, it ain't no wonder we all get nervous prosecution."
Jane crossed the little room, laughing, and kissing the faithful woman, bid Esmeralda good night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To really live, you must almost die ...

Nothing's gonna change my lies for you

Chapter 23. Brother Men
When D'Arnot regained consciousness, he found himself lying upon a bed of soft ferns and grasses beneath a little "A" shaped shelter of boughs.
At his feet an opening looked out upon a green sward, and at a little distance beyond was the dense wall of jungle and forest.
He was very lame and sore and weak, and as full consciousness returned he felt the sharp torture of many cruel wounds and the dull aching of every bone and muscle in his body as a result of the hideous beating he had received.
Even the turning of his head caused him such excruciating agony that he lay still with closed eyes for a long time.
He tried to piece out the details of his adventure prior to the time he lost consciousness to see if they would explain his present whereabouts--he wondered if he were among friends or foes.
At length he recollected the whole hideous scene at the stake, and finally recalled the strange white figure in whose arms he had sunk into oblivion.
D'Arnot wondered what fate lay in store for him now. He could neither see nor hear any signs of life about him.
The incessant hum of the jungle--the rustling of millions of leaves--the buzz of insects--the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as a blurred echo.
At length he fell into a quiet slumber, nor did he awake again until afternoon.
Once more he experienced the strange sense of utter bewilderment that had marked his earlier awakening, but soon he recalled the recent past, and looking through the opening at his feet he saw the figure of a man squatting on his haunches.

The broad, muscular back was turned toward him, but, tanned though it was, D'Arnot saw that it was the back of a white man, and he thanked God.
The Frenchman called faintly. The man turned, and rising, came toward the shelter. His face was very handsome--the handsomest, thought D'Arnot, that he had ever seen.
Stooping, he crawled into the shelter beside the wounded officer, and placed a cool hand upon his forehead.
D'Arnot spoke to him in French, but the man only shook his head--sadly, it seemed to the Frenchman.
Then D'Arnot tried English, but still the man shook his head. Italian, Spanish and German brought similar discouragement.
D'Arnot knew a few words of Norwegian, Russian, Greek, and also had a smattering of the language of one of the West Coast negro tribes--the man denied them all.
After examining D'Arnot's wounds the man left the shelter and disappeared. In half an hour he was back with fruit and a hollow gourd-like vegetable filled with water.
D'Arnot drank and ate a little. He was surprised that he had no fever. Again he tried to converse with his strange nurse, but the attempt was useless.
Suddenly the man hastened from the shelter only to return a few minutes later with several pieces of bark and--wonder of wonders--a lead pencil.

Squatting beside D'Arnot he wrote for a minute on the smooth inner surface of the bark; then he handed it to the Frenchman.
D'Arnot was astonished to see, in plain print-like characters, a message in English:
I am Tarzan of the Apes. Who are you? Can you read this language?
D'Arnot seized the pencil--then he stopped. This strange man wrote English--evidently he was an Englishman.
"Yes," said D'Arnot, "I read English. I speak it also. Now we may talk. First let me thank you for all that you have done for me."
The man only shook his head and pointed to the pencil and the bark.
"MON DIEU!" cried D'Arnot. "If you are English why is it then that you cannot speak English?"
And then in a flash it came to him--the man was a mute, possibly a deaf mute.
So D'Arnot wrote a message on the bark, in English.
I am Paul d'Arnot, Lieutenant in the navy of France. I thank you for what you have done for me. You have saved my life, and all that I have is yours. May I ask how it is that one who writes English does not speak it?
Tarzan's reply filled D'Arnot with still greater wonder:
I speak only the language of my tribe--the great apes who were Kerchak's; and a little of the languages of Tantor, the elephant, and Numa, the lion, and of the other folks of the jungle I understand. With a human being I have never spoken, except once with Jane Porter, by signs. This is the first time I have spoken with another of my kind through written words.
D'Arnot was mystified. It seemed incredible that there lived upon earth a full-grown man who had never spoken with a fellow man, and still more preposterous that such a one could read and write.

He looked again at Tarzan's message--"except once, with Jane Porter." That was the American girl who had been carried into the jungle by a gorilla.
A sudden light commenced to dawn on D'Arnot--this then was the "gorilla." He seized the pencil and wrote:
Where is Jane Porter?
And Tarzan replied, below:
Back with her people in the cabin of Tarzan of the Apes.
She is not dead then? Where was she? What happened to her?
She is not dead. She was taken by Terkoz to be his wife; but Tarzan of the Apes took her away from Terkoz and killed him before he could harm her.
None in all the jungle may face Tarzan of the Apes in battle, and live. I am Tarzan of the Apes--mighty fighter.
D'Arnot wrote:
I am glad she is safe. It pains me to write, I will rest a while.
And then Tarzan:
Yes, rest. When you are well I shall take you back to your people.
For many days D'Arnot lay upon his bed of soft ferns. The second day a fever had come and D'Arnot thought that it meant infection and he knew that he would die.

An idea came to him. He wondered why he had not thought of it before.
He called Tarzan and indicated by signs that he would write, and when Tarzan had fetched the bark and pencil, D'Arnot wrote:
Can you go to my people and lead them here? I will write a message that you may take to them, and they will follow you.
Tarzan shook his head and taking the bark, wrote:
I had thought of that--the first day; but I dared not. The great apes come often to this spot, and if they found you here, wounded and alone, they would kill you.
D'Arnot turned on his side and closed his eyes. He did not wish to die; but he felt that he was going, for the fever was mounting higher and higher. That night he lost consciousness.
For three days he was in delirium, and Tarzan sat beside him and bathed his head and hands and washed his wounds.
On the fourth day the fever broke as suddenly as it had come, but it left D'Arnot a shadow of his former self, and very weak. Tarzan had to lift him that he might drink from the gourd.
The fever had not been the result of infection, as D'Arnot had thought, but one of those that commonly attack whites in the jungles of Africa, and either kill or leave them as suddenly as D'Arnot's had left him.
Two days later, D'Arnot was tottering about the amphitheater, Tarzan's strong arm about him to keep him from falling.
They sat beneath the shade of a great tree, and Tarzan found some smooth bark that they might converse.

D'Arnot wrote the first message:
What can I do to repay you for all that you have done for me?
And Tarzan, in reply:
Teach me to speak the language of men.
And so D'Arnot commenced at once, pointing out familiar objects and repeating their names in French, for he thought that it would be easier to teach this man his own language, since he understood it himself best of all.
It meant nothing to Tarzan, of course, for he could not tell one language from another, so when he pointed to the word man which he had printed upon a piece of bark he learned from D'Arnot that it was pronounced HOMME, and in the same way he was taught to pronounce ape, SINGE and tree, ARBRE.
He was a most eager student, and in two more days had mastered so much French that he could speak little sentences such as: "That is a tree," "this is grass," "I am hungry," and the like, but D'Arnot found that it was difficult to teach him the French construction upon a foundation of English.
The Frenchman wrote little lessons for him in English and had Tarzan repeat them in French, but as a literal translation was usually very poor French Tarzan was often confused.

D'Arnot realized now that he had made a mistake, but it seemed too late to go back and do it all over again and force Tarzan to unlearn all that he had learned, especially as they were rapidly approaching a point where they would be able to converse.
On the third day after the fever broke Tarzan wrote a message asking D'Arnot if he felt strong enough to be carried back to the cabin. Tarzan was as anxious to go as D'Arnot, for he longed to see Jane again.
It had been hard for him to remain with the Frenchman all these days for that very reason, and that he had unselfishly done so spoke more glowingly of his nobility of character than even did his rescuing the French officer from Mbonga's clutches.
D'Arnot, only too willing to attempt the journey, wrote:
But you cannot carry me all the distance through this tangled forest.
Tarzan laughed.
"MAIS OUI," he said, and D'Arnot laughed aloud to hear the phrase that he used so often glide from Tarzan's tongue.
So they set out, D'Arnot marveling as had Clayton and Jane at the wondrous strength and agility of the apeman.
Mid-afternoon brought them to the clearing, and as Tarzan dropped to earth from the branches of the last tree his heart leaped and bounded against his ribs in anticipation of seeing Jane so soon again.
No one was in sight outside the cabin, and D'Arnot was perplexed to note that neither the cruiser nor the Arrow was at anchor in the bay.
An atmosphere of loneliness pervaded the spot, which caught suddenly at both men as they strode toward the cabin.

Neither spoke, yet both knew before they opened the closed door what they would find beyond.
Tarzan lifted the latch and pushed the great door in upon its wooden hinges. It was as they had feared. The cabin was deserted.
The men turned and looked at one another. D'Arnot knew that his people thought him dead; but Tarzan thought only of the woman who had kissed him in love and now had fled from him while he was serving one of her people.
A great bitterness rose in his heart. He would go away, far into the jungle and join his tribe. Never would he see one of his own kind again, nor could he bear the thought of returning to the cabin. He would leave that forever behind him with the great hopes he had nursed there of finding his own race and becoming a man among men.
And the Frenchman? D'Arnot? What of him? He could get along as Tarzan had. Tarzan did not want to see him more. He wanted to get away from everything that might remind him of Jane.
As Tarzan stood upon the threshold brooding, D'Arnot had entered the cabin. Many comforts he saw that had been left behind. He recognized numerous articles from the cruiser --a camp oven, some kitchen utensils, a rifle and many rounds of ammunition, canned foods, blankets, two chairs and a cot--and several books and periodicals, mostly American.

"They must intend returning," thought D'Arnot.
He walked over to the table that John Clayton had built so many years before to serve as a desk, and on it he saw two notes addressed to Tarzan of the Apes.
One was in a strong masculine hand and was unsealed. The other, in a woman's hand, was sealed.
"Here are two messages for you, Tarzan of the Apes," cried D'Arnot, turning toward the door; but his companion was not there.
D'Arnot walked to the door and looked out. Tarzan was nowhere in sight. He called aloud but there was no response.
"MON DIEU!" exclaimed D'Arnot, "he has left me. I feel it. He has gone back into his jungle and left me here alone."
And then he remembered the look on Tarzan's face when they had discovered that the cabin was empty--such a look as the hunter sees in the eyes of the wounded deer he has wantonly brought down.
The man had been hard hit--D'Arnot realized it now-- but why? He could not understand.
The Frenchman looked about him. The loneliness and the horror of the place commenced to get on his nerves--already weakened by the ordeal of suffering and sickness he had passed through.
To be left here alone beside this awful jungle--never to hear a human voice or see a human face--in constant dread of savage beasts and more terribly savage men--a prey to solitude and hopelessness. It was awful.

And far to the east Tarzan of the Apes was speeding through the middle terrace back to his tribe. Never had he traveled with such reckless speed. He felt that he was running away from himself--that by hurtling through the forest like a frightened squirrel he was escaping from his own thoughts. But no matter how fast he went he found them always with him.
He passed above the sinuous body of Sabor, the lioness, going in the opposite direction--toward the cabin, thought Tarzan.
What could D'Arnot do against Sabor--or if Bolgani, the gorilla, should come upon him--or Numa, the lion, or cruel Sheeta?
Tarzan paused in his flight.
"What are you, Tarzan?" he asked aloud. "An ape or a man?"
"If you are an ape you will do as the apes would do-- leave one of your kind to die in the jungle if it suited your whim to go elsewhere.
"If you are a man, you will return to protect your kind. You will not run away from one of your own people, because one of them has run away from you."
D'Arnot closed the cabin door. He was very nervous. Even brave men, and D'Arnot was a brave man, are sometimes frightened by solitude.
He loaded one of the rifles and placed it within easy reach. Then he went to the desk and took up the unsealed letter addressed to Tarzan.

Possibly it contained word that his people had but left the beach temporarily. He felt that it would be no breach of ethics to read this letter, so he took the enclosure from the envelope and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
We thank you for the use of your cabin, and are sorry that you did not permit us the pleasure of seeing and thanking you in person.
We have harmed nothing, but have left many things for you which may add to your comfort and safety here in your lonely home.
If you know the strange white man who saved our lives so many times, and brought us food, and if you can converse with him, thank him, also, for his kindness.
We sail within the hour, never to return; but we wish you and that other jungle friend to know that we shall always thank you for what you did for strangers on your shore, and that we should have done infinitely more to reward you both had you given us the opportunity. Very respectfully, WM. CECIL CLAYTON.
"`Never to return,'" muttered D'Arnot, and threw himself face downward upon the cot.
An hour later he started up listening. Something was at the door trying to enter.
D'Arnot reached for the loaded rifle and placed it to his shoulder.
Dusk was falling, and the interior of the cabin was very dark; but the man could see the latch moving from its place.
He felt his hair rising upon his scalp.
Gently the door opened until a thin crack showed something standing just beyond.
D'Arnot sighted along the blue barrel at the crack of the door--and then he pulled the trigger.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To really live, you must almost die ...

Nothing's gonna change my lies for you

Chapter 24
Lost Treasure
When the expe***ion returned, following their fruitless
endeavor *****ccor D''Arnot, Captain Dufranne was
anxious to steam away as quickly as possible, and all save
Jane had acquiesced.
"No," she said, determinedly, "I shall not go, nor should
you, for there are two friends in that jungle who will come
out of it some day expecting to find us awaiting them.
"Your officer, Captain Dufranne, is one of them, and the
forest man who has saved the lives of every member of my
father''s party is the other.
"He left me at the edge of the jungle two days ago to hasten
to the aid of my father and Mr. Clayton, as he thought,
and he has stayed to rescue Lieutenant D''Arnot; of that you
may be sure.
"Had he been too late to be of service to the lieutenant he
would have been back before now--the fact that he is not
back is sufficient proof to me that he is delayed because
Lieutenant D''Arnot is wounded, or he has had to follow his
captors further than the village which your sailors attacked."
"But poor D''Arnot''s uniform and all his belongings were
found in that village, Miss Porter," argued the captain, "and
the natives showed great excitement when questioned as to
the white man''s fate."
"Yes, Captain, but they did not admit that he was dead
and as for his clothes and accouterments being in their
possession--why more civilized peoples than these poor savage
negroes strip their prisoners of every article of value whether
they intend killing them or not.
"Even the soldiers of my own dear South looted not only the
living but the dead. It is strong circumstantial evidence,
I will admit, but it is not positive proof."
"Possibly your forest man, himself was captured or killed
by the savages," suggested Captain Dufranne.
The girl laughed.
"You do not know him," she replied, a little thrill of pride
setting her nerves a-tingle at the thought that she spoke
of her own.
"I admit that he would be worth waiting for, this superman
of yours," laughed the captain. "I most certainly should
like to see him."
"Then wait for him, my dear captain," urged the girl, "for
I intend doing so."
The Frenchman would have been a very much surprised man
could he have interpreted the true meaning of the girl''s words.
They had been walking from the beach toward the cabin
as they talked, and now they joined a little group sitting on
camp stools in the shade of a great tree beside the cabin.
Professor Porter was there, and Mr. Philander and Clayton,
with Lieutenant Charpentier and two of his brother
officers, while Esmeralda hovered in the background, ever
and anon venturing opinions and comments with the freedom
of an old and much-indulged family servant.
The officers arose and saluted as their superior approached,
and Clayton surrendered his camp stool to Jane.
"We were just discussing poor Paul''s fate," said Captain
Dufranne. "Miss Porter insists that we have no absolute
proof of his death--nor have we. And on the other hand she
maintains that the continued absence of your omnipotent jungle
friend indicates that D''Arnot is still in need of his services,
either because he is wounded, or still is a prisoner in a
more distant native village."
"It has been suggested," ventured Lieutenant Charpentier,
"that the wild man may have been a member of the tribe of
blacks who attacked our party--that he was hastening to aid
THEM--his own people."
Jane shot a quick glance at Clayton.
"It seems vastly more reasonable," said Professor Porter.
"I do not agree with you," objected Mr. Philander. "He had
ample opportunity to harm us himself, or to lead his people
against us. Instead, during our long residence here, he has
been uniformly consistent in his role of protector and provider."
"That is true," interjected Clayton, "yet we must not overlook
the fact that except for himself the only human beings
within hundreds of miles are savage cannibals. He was armed
precisely as are they, which indicates that he has maintained
relations of some nature with them, and the fact that he is
but one against possibly thousands suggests that these relations
could scarcely have been other than friendly."
"It seems improbable then that he is not connected with
them," remarked the captain; "possibly a member of this tribe."
"Otherwise," added another of the officers, "how could he
have lived a sufficient length of time among the savage
denizens of the jungle, brute and human, to have become
proficient in woodcraft, or in the use of African weapons."
"You are judging him according to your own standards,
gentlemen," said Jane. "An ordinary white man such as any
of you--pardon me, I did not mean just that--rather, a white
man above the ordinary in physique and intelligence could
never, I grant you, have lived a year alone and naked in this
tropical jungle; but this man not only surpasses the average
white man in strength and agility, but as far transcends our
trained athletes and `strong men'' as they surpass a day-old
babe; and his courage and ferocity in battle are those of the
wild beast."
"He has certainly won a loyal champion, Miss Porter,"
said Captain Dufranne, laughing. "I am sure that there be
none of us here but would willingly face death a hundred
times in its most terrifying forms to deserve the tributes
of one even half so loyal--or so beautiful."
"You would not wonder that I defend him," said the girl,
"could you have seen him as I saw him, battling in my behalf
with that huge hairy brute.
"Could you have seen him charge the monster as a bull
might charge a grizzly--absolutely without sign of fear or
hesitation--you would have believed him more than human.
"Could you have seen those mighty muscles knotting under
the brown skin--could you have seen them force back those
awful fangs--you too would have thought him invincible.
"And could you have seen the chivalrous treatment which
he accorded a strange girl of a strange race, you would
feel the same absolute confidence in him that I feel."
"You have won your suit, my fair pleader," cried the captain.
"This court finds the defendant not guilty, and the
cruiser shall wait a few days longer that he may have an
opportunity to come and thank the divine Portia."
"For the Lord''s sake honey," cried Esmeralda. "You all don''t
mean to tell ME that you''re going to stay right here in this
here land of carnivable animals when you all got the opportunity
to escapade on that boat? Don''t you tell me THAT, honey."
"Why, Esmeralda! You should be ashamed of yourself,"
cried Jane. "Is this any way to show your gratitude to the
man who saved your life twice?"
"Well, Miss Jane, that''s all jest as you say; but that there
forest man never did save us to stay here. He done save us so
we all could get AWAY from here. I expect he be mighty
peevish when he find we ain''t got no more sense than to stay
right here after he done give us the chance to get away.
"I hoped I''d never have to sleep in this here geological garden
another night and listen to all them lonesome noises that
come out of that jumble after dark."
"I don''t blame you a bit, Esmeralda," said Clayton, "and you
certainly did hit it off right when you called them `lonesome''
noises. I never have been able to find the right word for
them but that''s it, don''t you know, lonesome noises."
"You and Esmeralda had better go and live on the cruiser,"
said Jane, in fine scorn. "What would you think if you
HAD to live all of your life in that jungle as our forest
man has done?"
"I''m afraid I''d be a blooming bounder as a wild man,"
laughed Clayton, ruefully. "Those noises at night make the
hair on my head bristle. I suppose that I should be ashamed
to admit it, but it''s the truth."
"I don''t know about that," said Lieutenant Charpentier. "I
never thought much about fear and that sort of thing--never
tried to determine whether I was a coward or brave man; but
the other night as we lay in the jungle there after poor
D''Arnot was taken, and those jungle noises rose and fell
around us I began to think that I was a coward indeed. It
was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that
affected me so much as it was the stealthy noises--the ones
that you heard suddenly close by and then listened vainly for
a repetition of--the unaccountable sounds as of a great body
moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge that you didn''t
KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping closer
after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises--and the eyes.
"MON DIEU! I shall see them in the dark forever--the eyes
that you see, and those that you don''t see, but feel--ah, they
are the worst."
All were silent for a moment, and then Jane spoke.
"And he is out there," she said, in an awe-hushed whisper.
"Those eyes will be glaring at him to-night, and at your
comrade Lieutenant D''Arnot. Can you leave them, gentlemen,
without at least rendering them the passive succor which
remaining here a few days longer might insure them?"
"Tut, tut, child," said Professor Porter. "Captain Dufranne
is willing to remain, and for my part I am perfectly willing,
perfectly willing--as I always have been to humor your
childish whims."
"We can utilize the morrow in recovering the chest,
Professor," suggested Mr. Philander.
"Quite so, quite so, Mr. Philander, I had almost forgotten
the treasure," exclaimed Professor Porter. "Possibly we can
borrow some men from Captain Dufranne to assist us, and
one of the prisoners to point out the location of the chest."
"Most assuredly, my dear Professor, we are all yours to
command," said the captain.
And so it was arranged that on the next day Lieutenant
Charpentier was to take a detail of ten men, and one of the
mutineers of the Arrow as a guide, and unearth the treasure;
and that the cruiser would remain for a full week in the little
harbor. At the end of that time it was to be assumed that
D''Arnot was truly dead, and that the forest man would not
return while they remained. Then the two vessels were to
leave with all the party.
Professor Porter did not accompany the treasure-seekers
on the following day, but when he saw them returning
empty-handed toward noon, he hastened forward to meet them
--his usual preoccupied indifference entirely vanished, and in
its place a nervous and excited manner.
"Where is the treasure?" he cried to Clayton, while yet a
hundred feet separated them.
Clayton shook his head.
"Gone," he said, as he neared the professor.
"Gone! It cannot be. Who could have taken it?" cried
Professor Porter.
"God only knows, Professor," replied Clayton. "We might
have thought the fellow who guided us was lying about the
location, but his surprise and consternation on finding no
chest beneath the body of the murdered Snipes were too real
to be feigned. And then our spades showed us that SOMETHING
had been buried beneath the corpse, for a hole had been
there and it had been filled with loose earth."
"But who could have taken it?" repeated Professor Porter.
"Suspicion might naturally fall on the men of the cruiser,"
said Lieutenant Charpentier, "but for the fact that sub-lieutenant
Janviers here assures me that no men have had shore
leave--that none has been on shore since we anchored here
except under command of an officer. I do not know that you
would suspect our men, but I am glad that there is now no
chance for suspicion to fall on them," he concluded.
"It would never have occurred to me *****spect the men to
whom we owe so much," replied Professor Porter, graciously.
"I would as soon suspect my dear Clayton here, or
Mr. Philander."
The Frenchmen smiled, both officers and sailors. It was
plain to see that a burden had been lifted from their minds.
"The treasure has been gone for some time," continued Clayton.
"In fact the body fell apart as we lifted it, which indicates
that whoever removed the treasure did so while the corpse was
still fresh, for it was intact when we first uncovered it."
"There must have been several in the party," said Jane,
who had joined them. "You remember that it took four men
to carry it."
"By jove!" cried Clayton. "That''s right. It must have been
done by a party of blacks. Probably one of them saw the men
bury the chest and then returned immediately after with a
party of his friends, and carried it off."
"Speculation is futile," said Professor Porter sadly. "The
chest is gone. We shall never see it again, nor the treasure
that was in it."
Only Jane knew what the loss meant to her father, and
none there knew what it meant to her.
Six days later Captain Dufranne announced that they
would sail early on the morrow.
Jane would have begged for a further reprieve, had it not
been that she too had begun to believe that her forest lover
would return no more.
In spite of herself she began to entertain doubts and fears.
The reasonableness of the arguments of these disinterested
French officers commenced to convince her against her will.
That he was a cannibal she would not believe, but that he
was an adopted member of some savage tribe at length
seemed possible to her.
She would not admit that he could be dead. It was impossible
to believe that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant
life, could ever cease to harbor the vital spark--as soon
believe that immortality were dust.
As Jane permitted herself to harbor these thoughts, others
equally unwelcome forced themselves upon her.
If he belonged to some savage tribe he had a savage wife
--a dozen of them perhaps--and wild, half-caste children.
The girl shuddered, and when they told her that the cruiser
would sail on the morrow she was almost glad.
It was she, though, who suggested that arms, ammunition,
supplies and comforts be left behind in the cabin, ostensibly
for that intangible personality who had signed himself Tarzan
of the Apes, and for D''Arnot should he still be living, but
really, she hoped, for her forest god--even though his feet
should prove of clay.
And at the last minute she left a message for him, to be
transmitted by Tarzan of the Apes.
She was the last to leave the cabin, returning on some trivial
pretext after the others had started for the boat.
She kneeled down beside the bed in which she had spent so
many nights, and offered up a prayer for the safety of her
primeval man, and crushing his locket to her lips she murmured:
"I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if
I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for
me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into
the jungle with you--forever."

Chapter 25
The Outpost of the World
With the report of his gun D''Arnot saw the door fly open
and the figure of a man pitch headlong within onto the
cabin floor.
The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again
into the prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the
open door he saw that the man was white and in another instant
realized that he had shot his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.
With a cry of anguish D''Arnot sprang to the ape-man''s side,
and kneeling, lifted the latter''s head in his arms--calling
Tarzan''s name aloud.
There was no response, and then D''Arnot placed his ear above
the man''s heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.
Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing
and bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined
the wound.
The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull.
There was an ugly flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of
the skull.
D''Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing
the blood from Tarzan''s face.
Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened
his eyes to look in questioning surprise at D''Arnot.
The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and
as he saw that Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose
and going to the table wrote a message, which he handed to
the ape-man, explaining the terrible mistake he had made and
how thankful he was that the wound was not more serious.
Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the
couch and laughed.
"It is nothing," he said in French, and then, his vocabulary
failing him, he wrote:
You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak,
and Terkoz, before I killed them--then you would
laugh at such a little scratch.
D''Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been
left for him.
Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on
his face. The second one he turned over and over, searching
for an opening--he had never seen a sealed envelope before.
At length he handed it to D''Arnot.
The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan
was puzzled over the envelope. How strange it seemed that
to a full-grown white man an envelope was a mystery.
D''Arnot opened it and handed the letter back to Tarzan.
Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written
sheet before him and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton
for the kindness you have shown in permitting us the use
of your cabin.
That you never came to make friends with us has been a
great regret to us. We should have liked so much to have
seen and thanked our host.
There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not
come back, though I cannot believe that he is dead.
I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who
wore the diamond locket upon his breast.
If you know him and can speak his language carry my
thanks to him, and tell him that I waited seven days for him
to return.
Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of
Baltimore, there will always be a welcome for him if he cares
to come.
I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath
a tree near the cabin. I do not know how you learned to
love me, who have never spoken to me, and I am very sorry
if it is true, for I have already given my heart to another.
But know that I am always your friend,
JANE PORTER.
Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an
hour. It was evident to him from the notes that they did not
know that he and Tarzan of the Apes were one and the same.
"I have given my heart to another," he repeated over and
over again to himself.
Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended
love, and raised him *****ch a pinnacle of hope only to cast
him down *****ch utter depths of despair!
Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did
he know, who knew nothing of the customs of human beings?
Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D''Arnot good night as he
had learned to do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that
had been Jane Porter''s.
D''Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.
For a week they did little but rest, D''Arnot coaching Tarzan
in French. At the end of that time the two men could
converse quite easily.
One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before
retiring, Tarzan turned to D''Arnot.
"Where is America?" he said.
D''Arnot pointed toward the northwest.
"Many thousands of miles across the ocean," he replied. "Why?"
"I am going there."
D''Arnot shook his head.
"It is impossible, my friend," he said.
Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned
with a well-thumbed geography.
Turning to a map of the world, he said:
"I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please."
When D''Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue
represented all the water on the earth, and the bits of other
colors the continents and islands, Tarzan asked him to point
out the spot where they now were.
D''Arnot did so.
"Now point out America," said Tarzan.
And as D''Arnot placed his finger upon North America,
Tarzan smiled and laid his palm upon the page, spanning the
great ocean that lay between the two continents.
"You see it is not so very far," he said; "scarce the width
of my hand."
D''Arnot laughed. How could he make the man understand?
Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the
shore of Africa.
"This little mark," he said, "is many times larger upon this
map than your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how
very far it is?"
Tarzan thought for a long time.
"Do any white men live in Africa?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Where are the nearest?"
D''Arnot pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.
"So close?" asked Tarzan, in surprise.
"Yes," said D''Arnot; "but it is not close."
"Have they big boats to cross the ocean?"
"Yes."
"We shall go there to-morrow," announced Tarzan.
Again D''Arnot smiled and shook his head.
"It is too far. We should die long before we reached them."
"Do you wish to stay here then forever?" asked Tarzan.
"No," said D''Arnot.
"Then we shall start to-morrow. I do not like it here
longer. I should rather die than remain here."
"Well," answered D''Arnot, with a shrug, "I do not know,
my friend, but that I also would rather die than remain here.
If you go, I shall go with you."
"It is settled then," said Tarzan. "I shall start for America
to-morrow."
"How will you get to America without money?" asked D''Arnot.
"What is money?" inquired Tarzan.
It took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly.
"How do men get money?" he asked at last.
"They work for it."
"Very well. I will work for it, then."
"No, my friend," returned D''Arnot, "you need not worry
about money, nor need you work for it. I have enough
money for two--enough for twenty. Much more than is good
for one man and you shall have all you need if ever we
reach civilization."
So on the following day they started north along the shore.
Each man carrying a rifle and ammunition, beside bedding
and some food and cooking utensils.
The latter seemed to Tarzan a most useless encumbrance,
so he threw his away.
"But you must learn to eat cooked food, my friend,"
remonstrated D''Arnot. "No civilized men eat raw flesh."
"There will be time enough when I reach civilization," said
Tarzan. "I do not like the things and they only spoil the taste
of good meat."
For a month they traveled north. Sometimes finding food
in plenty and again going hungry for days.
They saw no signs of natives nor were they molested by
wild beasts. Their journey was a miracle of ease.
Tarzan asked questions and learned rapidly. D''Arnot
taught him many of the refinements of civilization--even to
the use of knife and fork; but sometimes Tarzan would drop
them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hands,
tearing it with his molars like a wild beast.
Then D''Arnot would expostulate with him, saying:
"You must not eat like a brute, Tarzan, while I am trying
to make a gentleman of you. MON DIEU! Gentlemen do not
thus--it is terrible."
Tarzan would grin sheepishly and pick up his knife and
fork again, but at heart he hated them.
On the journey he told D''Arnot about the great chest he had
seen the sailors bury; of how he had dug it up and carried
it to the gathering place of the apes and buried it there.
"It must be the treasure chest of Professor Porter," said
D''Arnot. "It is too bad, but of course you did not know."
Then Tarzan recalled the letter written by Jane to her
friend--the one he had stolen when they first came to his
cabin, and now he knew what was in the chest and what it
meant to Jane.
"To-morrow we shall go back after it," he announced to D''Arnot.
"Go back?" exclaimed D''Arnot. "But, my dear fellow, we
have now been three weeks upon the march. It would require
three more to return to the treasure, and then, with that
enormous weight which required, you say, four sailors to carry,
it would be months before we had again reached this spot."
"It must be done, my friend," insisted Tarzan. "You may go
on toward civilization, and I will return for the treasure.
I can go very much faster alone."
"I have a better plan, Tarzan," exclaimed D''Arnot. "We
shall go on together to the nearest settlement, and there we
will charter a boat and sail back down the coast for the treasure
and so transport it easily. That will be safer and quicker
and also not require us to be separated. What do you think of
that plan?"
"Very well," said Tarzan. "The treasure will be there
whenever we go for it; and while I could fetch it now, and
catch up with you in a moon or two, I shall feel safer for you
to know that you are not alone on the trail. When I see how
helpless you are, D''Arnot, I often wonder how the human race
has escaped annihilation all these ages which you tell me about.
Why, Sabor, single handed, could exterminate a thousand of you."
D''Arnot laughed.
"You will think more highly of your genus when you have
seen its armies and navies, its great cities, and its mighty
engineering works. Then you will realize that it is mind, and
not muscle, that makes the human animal greater than the
mighty beasts of your jungle.
"Alone and unarmed, a single man is no match for any of
the larger beasts; but if ten men were together, they would
combine their wits and their muscles against their savage
enemies, while the beasts, being unable to reason, would never
think of combining against the men. Otherwise, Tarzan of the
Apes, how long would you have lasted in the savage wilderness?"
"You are right, D''Arnot," replied Tarzan, "for if Kerchak
had come to Tublat''s aid that night at the Dum-Dum, there
would have been an end of me. But Kerchak could never
think far enough ahead to take advantage of any such
opportunity. Even Kala, my mother, could never plan ahead.
She simply ate what she needed when she needed it, and if the
supply was very scarce, even though she found plenty for
several meals, she would never gather any ahead.
"I remember that she used to think it very silly of me to
burden myself with extra food upon the march, though she
was quite glad to eat it with me, if the way chanced to be
barren of sustenance."
"Then you knew your mother, Tarzan?" asked D''Arnot, in surprise.
"Yes. She was a great, fine ape, larger than I, and weighing
twice as much."
"And your father?" asked D''Arnot.
"I did not know him. Kala told me he was a white ape,
and hairless like myself. I know now that he must have
been a white man."
D''Arnot looked long and earnestly at his companion.
"Tarzan," he said at length, "it is impossible that the ape,
Kala, was your mother. If such a thing can be, which I
doubt, you would have inherited some of the characteristics
of the ape, but you have not--you are pure man, and, I
should say, the offspring of highly bred and intelligent
parents. Have you not the slightest clue to your past?"
"Not the slightest," replied Tarzan.
"No writings in the cabin that might have told something
of the lives of its original inmates?"
"I have read everything that was in the cabin with the
exception of one book which I know now to be written in a
language other than English. Possibly you can read it."
Tarzan fished the little black diary from the bottom of his
quiver, and handed it to his companion.
D''Arnot glanced at the title page.
"It is the diary of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, an
English nobleman, and it is written in French," he said.
Then he proceeded to read the diary that had been written
over twenty years before, and which recorded the details of
the story which we already know--the story of adventure,
hardships and sorrow of John Clayton and his wife Alice,
from the day they left England until an hour before he was
struck down by Kerchak.
D''Arnot read aloud. At times his voice broke, and he was
forced to stop reading for the pitiful hopelessness that spoke
between the lines.
Occasionally he glanced at Tarzan; but the ape-man sat
upon his haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon
the ground.
Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the
diary alter from the habitual note of despair which had crept
into it by degrees after the first two months upon the shore.
Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness
that was even sadder than the rest.
One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit.
To-day our little boy is six months old. He is sitting in
Alice''s lap beside the table where I am writing--a happy,
healthy, perfect child.
Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him a
grown man, taking his father''s place in the world--the
second John Clayton--and bringing added honors to the house
of Greystoke.
There--as though to give my prophecy the weight of his
endorsement--he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and
with his inkbegrimed little fingers has placed the seal of his
tiny finger prints upon the page.
And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred
imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb.
When D''Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in
silence for some minutes.
"Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?" asked D''Arnot.
"Does not this little book clear up the mystery of
your parentage?
"Why man, you are Lord Greystoke."
"The book speaks of but one child," he replied. "Its little
skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment,
from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter''s
party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin.
"No, that was the babe the book speaks of--and the mystery
of my origin is deeper than before, for I have thought
much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my
birthplace. I am afraid that Kala spoke the truth," he
concluded sadly.
D''Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his
mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness
of his theory, for he had discovered the key which alone
could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms
of the unfathomable.
A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing
in the forest.
In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a
strong palisade. Between them and the enclosure stretched a
cultivated field in which a number of negroes were working.
The two halted at the edge of the jungle.
Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D''Arnot
placed a hand upon his arm.
"What would you do, Tarzan?" he asked.
"They will try to kill us if they see us," replied Tarzan.
"I prefer to be the killer."
"Maybe they are friends," suggested D''Arnot.
"They are black," was Tarzan''s only reply.
And again he drew back his shaft.
"You must not, Tarzan!" cried D''Arnot. "White men do
not kill wantonly. MON DIEU! but you have much to learn.
"I pity the ruffian who crosses you, my wild man, when I
take you to Paris. I will have my hands full keeping your
neck from beneath the guillotine."
Tarzan lowered his bow and smiled.
"I do not know why I should kill the blacks back there in
my jungle, yet not kill them here. Suppose Numa, the lion,
should spring out upon us, I should say, then, I presume:
Good morning, Monsieur Numa, how is Madame Numa; eh?"
"Wait until the blacks spring upon you," replied D''Arnot,
"then you may kill them. Do not assume that men are your
enemies until they prove it."
"Come," said Tarzan, "let us go and present ourselves to
be killed," and he started straight across the field, his head
high held and the tropical sun beating upon his smooth,
brown skin.
Behind him came D''Arnot, clothed in some garments
which had been discarded at the cabin by Clayton when the
officers of the French cruiser had fitted him out in more
presentable fashion.
Presently one of the blacks looked up, and beholding Tarzan,
turned, shrieking, toward the palisade.
In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the
fleeing gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a
white man emerged from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover
the cause of the commotion.
What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Tarzan
of the Apes would have felt cold lead once again had not
D''Arnot cried loudly to the man with the leveled gun:
"Do not fire! We are friends!"
"Halt, then!" was the reply.
"Stop, Tarzan!" cried D''Arnot. "He thinks we are enemies."
Tarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and D''Arnot
advanced toward the white man by the gate.
The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.
"What manner of men are you?" he asked, in French.
"White men," replied D''Arnot. "We have been lost in the
jungle for a long time."
The man had lowered his rifle and now advanced with
outstretched hand.
"I am Father Constantine of the French Mission here," he
said, "and I am glad to welcome you."
"This is Monsieur Tarzan, Father Constantine," replied
D''Arnot, indicating the ape-man; and as the priest extended
his hand to Tarzan, D''Arnot added: "and I am Paul D''Arnot,
of the French Navy."
Father Constantine took the hand which Tarzan extended
in imitation of the priest''s act, while the latter took in
the superb physique and handsome face in one quick, keen glance.
And thus came Tarzan of the Apes to the first outpost of
civilization.
For a week they remained there, and the ape-man, keenly
observant, learned much of the ways of men; meanwhile black
women sewed white duck garments for himself and D''Arnot so
that they might continue their journey properly clothed.

Chapter 26
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings
at the mouth of a wide river, and there Tarzan saw many
boats, and was filled with the timi***y of the wild thing by
the sight of many men.
Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and
the odd ways of civilization, so that presently none might
know that two short months before, this handsome Frenchman
in immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chatted
with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked through
primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which,
raw, was to fill his savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month
before, Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the
polished D''Arnot.
So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had labored
assiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman
in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
"God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend," D''Arnot had
said; "but we want His works to show upon the exterior also."
As soon as they had reached the little port, D''Arnot had
cabled his government of his safety, and requested a three-
months'' leave, which had been granted.
He had also cabled his bankers for funds, and the enforced
wait of a month, under which both chafed, was due to their
inability to charter a vessel for the return to Tarzan''s jungle
after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town "Monsieur Tarzan" became
the wonder of both whites and blacks because of several
occurrences which to Tarzan seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and
terrorized the town, until his evil star had led him to where the
black-haired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the
Negro made straight for a party of four men sitting at
a table sipping the inevitable absinthe.
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then
the black spied Tarzan.
With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundred
heads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witness
the butchering of the poor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of
battle always brought to his lips.
As the Negro closed upon him, steel muscles gripped the
black wrist of the uplifted knife-hand, and a single swift
wrench left the hand dangling below a broken bone.
With the pain and surprise, the madness left the black
man, and as Tarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow
turned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward the
native village.
On another occasion as Tarzan and D''Arnot sat at dinner
with a number of other whites, the talk fell upon lions and
lion hunting.
Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts
--some maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all
agreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security that
they gripped their express rifles when the monarch of the
jungle roared about a camp at night.
D''Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret,
and so none other than the French officer knew of the
ape-man''s familiarity with the beasts of the jungle.
"Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself," said one of
the party. "A man of his prowess who has spent some time in
Africa, as I understand Monsieur Tarzan has, must have had
experiences with lions--yes?"
"Some," replied Tarzan, dryly. "Enough to know that each
of you are right in your judgment of the characteristics of the
lions--you have met. But one might as well judge all blacks
by the fellow who ran amuck last week, or decide that all
whites are cowards because one has met a cowardly white.
"There is as much individuality among the lower orders,
gentlemen, as there is among ourselves. Today we may go out
and stumble upon a lion which is over-timid--he runs away
from us. To-morrow we may meet his uncle or his twin
brother, and our friends wonder why we do not return from
the jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion is
ferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard."
"There would be little pleasure in hunting," retorted the
first speaker, "if one is afraid of the thing he hunts."
D''Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!
"I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear," said
Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men,
but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that
the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to
harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun
bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should
not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure
of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased
safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer
to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to
kill the king of beasts," laughed the other, good naturedly,
but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant
jungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists
with him.
"There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan," bantered
the Frenchman.
"I am not hungry," said Tarzan simply.
The men laughed, all but D''Arnot. He alone knew that a
savage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips of
the ape-man.
"But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out
there naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope,"
said the banterer. "Is it not so?"
"No," replied Tarzan. "Only a fool performs any act
without reason."
"Five thousand francs is a reason," said the other. "I
wager you that amount you cannot bring back a lion from
the jungle under the con***ions we have named--naked and
armed only with a knife and a piece of rope."
Tarzan glanced toward D''Arnot and nodded his head.
"Make it ten thousand," said D''Arnot.
"Done," replied the other.
Tarzan arose.
"I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement,
so that if I do not return before daylight I shall have
something to wear through the streets."
"You are not going now," exclaimed the wagerer--"at night?"
"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "Numa walks abroad at night
--it will be easier to find him."
"No," said the other, "I do not want your blood upon my
hands. It will be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day."
"I shall go now," replied Tarzan, and went to his room for
his knife and rope.
The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle,
where he left his clothes in a small storehouse.
But when he would have entered the blackness of the
undergrowth they tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was
most insistent of all that he abandon his foolhardy venture.
"I will accede that you have won," he said, "and the ten
thousand francs are yours if you will but give up this
foolish attempt, which can only end in your death."
Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle had
swallowed him.
The men stood silent for some moments and then slowly
turned and walked back to the hotel veranda.
Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took to
the trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that
he swung once more through the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing
like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed
in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a
hindrance and a nuisance.
At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he
had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then
make toward the south and his own jungle and cabin.
Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up
wind. Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of
padded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur-clad body
through the undergrowth.
Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently
stalked him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the
tawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in the
past, Tarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, while
the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the
ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plunged
his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his
voice in the awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting
emotions of loyalty to D''Arnot and a mighty lust for the
freedom of his own jungle. At last the vision of a beautiful
face, and the memory of warm lips crushed to his dissolved
the fascinating picture he had been drawing of his old life.
The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his
shoulders and took to the trees once more.
The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.
They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects,
and always the thing uppermost in the mind of each
had caused the conversation to lapse.
"MON DIEU," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure it
no longer. I am going into the jungle with my express and
bring back that mad man."
"I will go with you," said one.
"And I"--"And I"--"And I," chorused the others.
As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some
horrid nightmare they hastened to their various quarters, and
presently were headed toward the jungle--each one heavily armed.
"God! What was that?" suddenly cried one of the party, an
Englishman, as Tarzan''s savage cry came faintly to their ears.
"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian,
"when I was in the gorilla country. My carriers said it
was the cry of a great bull ape who has made a kill."
D''Arnot remembered Clayton''s description of the awful
roar with which Tarzan had announced his kills, and he half
smiled in spite of the horror which filled him to think that
the uncanny sound could have issued from a human throat
--from the lips of his friend.
As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle,
debating as to the best distribution of their forces, they were
startled by a low laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing
toward them a giant figure bearing a dead lion upon
its broad shoulders.
Even D''Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible
that the man could have so quickly dispatched a lion with the
pitiful weapons he had taken, or that alone he could have
borne the huge carcass through the tangled jungle.
The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, but
his only answer was a laughing depreciation of his feat.
To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher
for his heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so
often for food and for self-preservation that the act seemed
anything but remarkable to him. But he was indeed a hero in
the eyes of these men--men accustomed to hunting big game.
Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D''Arnot
insisted that he keep it all.
This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was just
commencing to realize the power which lay beyond the little
pieces of metal and paper which always changed hands when
human beings rode, or ate, or slept, or clothed themselves, or
drank, or worked, or played, or sheltered themselves from
the rain or cold or sun.
It had become evident to Tarzan that without money one
must die. D''Arnot had told him not to worry, since he had
more than enough for both, but the ape-man was learning
many things and one of them was that people looked down
upon one who accepted money from another without giving
something of equal value in exchange.
Shortly after the episode of the lion hunt, D''Arnot
succeeded in chartering an ancient tub for the coastwise
trip to Tarzan''s land-locked harbor.
It was a happy morning for them both when the little vessel
weighed anchor and made for the open sea.
The trip to the beach was uneventful, and the morning
after they dropped anchor before the cabin, Tarzan, garbed
once more in his jungle regalia and carrying a spade, set out
alone for the amphitheater of the apes where lay the treasure.
Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest upon
his shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked through
the harbor''s mouth and took up her northward journey.
Three weeks later Tarzan and D''Arnot were passengers on
board a French steamer bound for Lyons, and after a few
days in that city D''Arnot took Tarzan to Paris.
The ape-man was anxious to proceed to America, but
D''Arnot insisted that he must accompany him to Paris first,
nor would he divulge the nature of the urgent necessity upon
which he based his demand.
One of the first things which D''Arnot accomplished after
their arrival was to arrange to visit a high official of the
police department, an old friend; and to take Tarzan with him.
Adroitly D''Arnot led the conversation from point to point until
the policeman had explained to the interested Tarzan many of
the methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.
Not the least interesting to Tarzan was the part played by
finger prints in this fascinating science.
"But of what value are these imprints," asked Tarzan,
"when, after a few years the lines upon the fingers are
entirely changed by the wearing out of the old tissue and the
growth of new?"
"The lines never change," replied the official. "From infancy
to senility the fingerprints of an individual change only
in size, except as injuries alter the loops and whorls. But if
imprints have been taken of the thumb and four fingers of both
hands one must needs lose all entirely to escape identification."
"It is marvelous," exclaimed D''Arnot. "I wonder what the
lines upon my own fingers may resemble."
"We can soon see," replied the police officer, and ringing a
bell he summoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.
The man left the room, but presently returned with a little
hardwood box which he placed on his superior''s desk.
"Now," said the officer, "you shall have your fingerprints
in a second."
He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little
tube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.
Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, he spread it back
and forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of the
glass was covered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniform
layer of ink.
"Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass,
thus," he said to D''Arnot. "Now the thumb. That is right.
Now place them in just the same position upon this card,
here, no--a little to the right. We must leave room for the
thumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that''s it. Now
the same with the left."
"Come, Tarzan," cried D''Arnot, "let''s see what your
whorls look like."
Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officer
during the operation.
"Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?" he asked.
"Could you determine, for example, solely from fingerprints
whether the subject was Negro or Caucasian?"
"I think not," replied the officer.
"Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from those
of a man?"
"Probably, because the ape''s would be far simpler than
those of the higher organism."
"But a cross between an ape and a man might show the
characteristics of either progenitor?" continued Tarzan.
"Yes, I should think likely," responded the official; "but
the science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exact
enough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findings
further than to differentiate between individuals. There it is
absolute. No two people born into the world probably have ever
had identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful if
any single fingerprint will ever be exactly duplicated by any
finger other than the one which originally made it."
"Does the comparison require much time or labor?" asked D''Arnot.
"Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct."
D''Arnot drew a little black book from his pocket and commenced
turning the pages.
Tarzan looked at the book in surprise. How did D''Arnot
come to have his book?
Presently D''Arnot stopped at a page on which were five
tiny little smudges.
He handed the open book to the policeman.
"Are these imprints similar to mine or Monsieur Tarzan''s
or can you say that they are identical with either?"
The officer drew a powerful glass from his desk and
examined all three specimens carefully, making notations
meanwhile upon a pad of paper.
Tarzan realized now what was the meaning of their visit to
the police officer.
The answer to his life''s riddle lay in these tiny marks.
With tense nerves he sat leaning forward in his chair, but
suddenly he relaxed and dropped back, smiling.
D''Arnot looked at him in surprise.
"You forget that for twenty years the dead body of the
child who made those fingerprints lay in the cabin of his
father, and that all my life I have seen it lying there,"
said Tarzan bitterly.
The policeman looked up in astonishment.
"Go ahead, captain, with your examination," said D''Arnot,
"we will tell you the story later--provided Monsieur Tarzan
is agreeable."
Tarzan nodded his head.
"But you are mad, my dear D''Arnot," he insisted. "Those
little fingers are buried on the west coast of Africa."
"I do not know as to that, Tarzan," replied D''Arnot. "It is
possible, but if you are not the son of John Clayton then how
in heaven''s name did you come into that God forsaken jungle
where no white man other than John Clayton had ever set foot?"
"You forget--Kala," said Tarzan.
"I do not even consider her," replied D''Arnot.
The friends had walked to the broad window overlooking
the boulevard as they talked. For some time they stood there
gazing out upon the busy throng beneath, each wrapped in
his own thoughts.
"It takes some time to compare finger prints," thought
D''Arnot, turning to look at the police officer.
To his astonishment he saw the official leaning back in his
chair hastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.
D''Arnot coughed. The policeman looked up, and, catching his
eye, raised his finger to admonish silence. D''Arnot turned
back to the window, and presently the police officer spoke.
"Gentlemen," he said.
Both turned toward him.
"There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hinge
to a greater or lesser extent upon the absolute correctness of
this comparison. I therefore ask that you leave the entire
matter in my hands until Monsieur Desquerc, our expert
returns. It will be but a matter of a few days."
"I had hoped to know at once," said D''Arnot. "Monsieur
Tarzan sails for America tomorrow."
"I will promise that you can cable him a report within two
weeks," replied the officer; "but what it will be I dare not say.
There are resemblances, yet--well, we had better leave it for
Monsieur Desquerc to solve."

Chapter 27
The Giant Again
A taxicab drew up before an oldfashioned residence upon
the outskirts of Baltimore.
A man of about forty, well built and with strong, regular
features, stepped out, and paying the chauffeur dismissed him.
A moment later the passenger was entering the library of
the old home.
"Ah, Mr. Canler!" exclaimed an old man, rising to greet him.
"Good evening, my dear Professor," cried the man, extending
a cordial hand.
"Who admitted you?" asked the professor.
"Esmeralda."
"Then she will acquaint Jane with the fact that you are
here," said the old man.
"No, Professor," replied Canler, "for I came primarily to
see you."
"Ah, I am honored," said Professor Porter.
"Professor," continued Robert Canler, with great deliberation,
as though carefully weighing his words, "I have come
this evening to speak with you about Jane."
"You know my aspirations, and you have been generous
enough to approve my suit."
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter fidgeted in his armchair.
The subject always made him uncomfortable. He could not
understand why. Canler was a splendid match.
"But Jane," continued Canler, "I cannot understand her.
She puts me off first on one ground and then another. I have
always the feeling that she breathes a sigh of relief every time
I bid her good-by."
"Tut, tut," said Professor Porter. "Tut, tut, Mr. Canler.
Jane is a most obedient daughter. She will do precisely as I
tell her."
"Then I can still count on your support?" asked Canler, a
tone of relief marking his voice.
"Certainly, sir; certainly, sir," exclaimed Professor Porter.
"How could you doubt it?"
"There is young Clayton, you know," suggested Canler. "He has
been hanging about for months. I don''t know that Jane cares
for him; but beside his title they say he has inherited a
very considerable estate from his father, and it might not be
strange,--if he finally won her, unless--" and Canler paused.
"Tut--tut, Mr. Canler; unless--what?"
"Unless, you see fit to request that Jane and I be married
at once," said Canler, slowly and distinctly.
"I have already suggested to Jane that it would be desirable,"
said Professor Porter sadly, "for we can no longer afford to
keep up this house, and live as her associations demand."
"What was her reply?" asked Canler.
"She said she was not ready to marry anyone yet," replied
Professor Porter, "and that we could go and live upon the
farm in northern Wisconsin which her mother left her.
"It is a little more than self-supporting. The tenants have
always made a living from it, and been able to send Jane a
trifle beside, each year. She is planning on our going up there
the first of the week. Philander and Mr. Clayton have already
gone to get things in readiness for us."
"Clayton has gone there?" exclaimed Canler, visibly chagrined.
"Why was I not told? I would gladly have gone and
seen that every comfort was provided."
"Jane feels that we are already too much in your debt, Mr.
Canler," said Professor Porter.
Canler was about to reply, when the sound of footsteps
came from the hall without, and Jane entered the room.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed, pausing on the
threshold. "I thought you were alone, papa."
"It is only I, Jane," said Canler, who had risen, "won''t you
come in and join the family group? We were just speaking of you."
"Thank you," said Jane, entering and taking the chair Canler
placed for her. "I only wanted to tell papa that Tobey is
coming down from the college tomorrow to pack his books. I
want you to be sure, papa, to indicate all that you can do
without until fall. Please don''t carry this entire library to
Wisconsin, as you would have carried it to Africa, if I had
not put my foot down."
"Was Tobey here?" asked Professor Porter.
"Yes, I just left him. He and Esmeralda are exchanging
religious experiences on the back porch now."
"Tut, tut, I must see him at once!" cried the professor.
"Excuse me just a moment, children," and the old man
hastened from the room.
As soon as he was out of earshot Canler turned to Jane.
"See here, Jane," he said bluntly. "How long is this thing
going on like this? You haven''t refused to marry me, but you
haven''t promised either. I want to get the license tomorrow,
so that we can be married quietly before you leave for Wisconsin.
I don''t care for any fuss or feathers, and I''m sure you
don''t either."
The girl turned cold, but she held her head bravely.
"Your father wishes it, you know," added Canler.
"Yes, I know."
She spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"Do you realize that you are buying me, Mr. Canler?" she
said finally, and in a cold, level voice. "Buying me for a few
paltry dollars? Of course you do, Robert Canler, and the
hope of just such a contingency was in your mind when you
loaned papa the money for that hair-brained escapade, which
but for a most mysterious circumstance would have been
surprisingly successful.
"But you, Mr. Canler, would have been the most surprised.
You had no idea that the venture would succeed. You are too
good a businessman for that. And you are too good a
businessman to loan money for buried treasure seeking, or to
loan money without security--unless you had some special
object in view.
"You knew that without security you had a greater hold on
the honor of the Porters than with it. You knew the one best
way to force me to marry you, without seeming to force me.
"You have never mentioned the loan. In any other man I
should have thought that the prompting of a magnanimous
and noble character. But you are deep, Mr. Robert Canler. I
know you better than you think I know you.
"I shall certainly marry you if there is no other way, but
let us understand each other once and for all."
While she spoke Robert Canler had alternately flushed and
paled, and when she ceased speaking he arose, and with a
cynical smile upon his strong face, said:
"You surprise me, Jane. I thought you had more self-control
--more pride. Of course you are right. I am buying you,
and I knew that you knew it, but I thought you would prefer
to pretend that it was otherwise. I should have thought your
self respect and your Porter pride would have shrunk from
admitting, even to yourself, that you were a bought woman.
But have it your own way, dear girl," he added lightly. "I
am going to have you, and that is all that interests me."
Without a word the girl turned and left the room.
Jane was not married before she left with her father and
Esmeralda for her little Wisconsin farm, and as she coldly
bid Robert Canler goodby as her train pulled out, he called to
her that he would join them in a week or two.
At their destination they were met by Clayton and Mr.
Philander in a huge touring car belonging to the former, and
quickly whirled away through the dense northern woods toward
the little farm which the girl had not visited before
since childhood.
The farmhouse, which stood on a little elevation some
hundred yards from the tenant house, had undergone a complete
transformation during the three weeks that Clayton and
Mr. Philander had been there.
The former had imported a small army of carpenters and
plasterers, plumbers and painters from a distant city, and
what had been but a dilapidated shell when they reached it
was now a cosy little two-story house filled with every modern
convenience procurable in so short a time.
"Why, Mr. Clayton, what have you done?" cried Jane Porter,
her heart sinking within her as she realized the probable
size of the expen***ure that had been made.
"S-sh," cautioned Clayton. "Don''t let your father guess. If
you don''t tell him he will never notice, and I simply couldn''t
think of him living in the terrible squalor and sordidness
which Mr. Philander and I found. It was so little when I
would like to do so much, Jane. For his sake, please, never
mention it."
"But you know that we can''t repay you," cried the girl.
"Why do you want to put me under such terrible obligations?"
"Don''t, Jane," said Clayton sadly. "If it had been just you,
believe me, I wouldn''t have done it, for I knew from the start
that it would only hurt me in your eyes, but I couldn''t think
of that dear old man living in the hole we found here. Won''t
you please believe that I did it just for him and give me that
little crumb of pleasure at least?"
"I do believe you, Mr. Clayton," said the girl, "because I
know you are big enough and generous enough to have done
it just for him--and, oh Cecil, I wish I might repay you as
you deserve--as you would wish."
"Why can''t you, Jane?"
"Because I love another."
"Canler?"
"No."
"But you are going to marry him. He told me as much
before I left Baltimore."
The girl winced.
"I do not love him," she said, almost proudly.
"Is it because of the money, Jane?"
She nodded.
"Then am I so much less desirable than Canler? I have
money enough, and far more, for every need," he said bitterly.
"I do not love you, Cecil," she said, "but I respect you. If I
must disgrace myself by such a bargain with any man, I prefer
that it be one I already despise. I should loathe the man
to whom I sold myself without love, whomsoever he might
be. You will be happier," she concluded, "alone--with my
respect and friendship, than with me and my contempt."
He did not press the matter further, but if ever a man had
murder in his heart it was William Cecil Clayton, Lord
Greystoke, when, a week later, Robert Canler drew up before
the farmhouse in his purring six cylinder.
A week passed; a tense, uneventful, but uncomfortable
week for all the inmates of the little Wisconsin farmhouse.
Canler was insistent that Jane marry him at once.
At length she gave in from sheer loathing of the continued
and hateful importuning.
It was agreed that on the morrow Canler was to drive to
town and bring back the license and a minister.
Clayton had wanted to leave as soon as the plan was
announced, but the girl''s tired, hopeless look kept him.
He could not desert her.
Something might happen yet, he tried to console himself
by thinking. And in his heart, he knew that it would require
but a tiny spark to turn his hatred for Canler into the blood
lust of the killer.
Early the next morning Canler set out for town.
In the east smoke could be seen lying low over the forest,
for a fire had been raging for a week not far from them, but
the wind still lay in the west and no danger threatened them.
About noon Jane started off for a walk. She would not let
Clayton accompany her. She wanted to be alone, she said,
and he respected her wishes.
In the house Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were immersed
in an absorbing discussion of some weighty scientific problem.
Esmeralda dozed in the kitchen, and Clayton, heavy-eyed after
a sleepless night, threw himself down upon the couch in the
living room and soon dropped into a fitful slumber.
To the east the black smoke clouds rose higher into the
heavens, suddenly they eddied, and then commenced to drift
rapidly toward the west.
On and on they came. The inmates of the tenant house
were gone, for it was market day, and none was there to
see the rapid approach of the fiery demon.
Soon the flames had spanned the road to the south and cut
off Canler''s return. A little fluctuation of the wind now
carried the path of the forest fire to the north, then blew back
and the flames nearly stood still as though held in leash by
some master hand.
Suddenly, out of the northeast, a great black car came
careening down the road.
With a jolt it stopped before the cottage, and a black-haired
giant leaped out to run up onto the porch. Without a
pause he rushed into the house. On the couch lay Clayton.
The man started in surprise, but with a bound was at the side
of the sleeping man.
Shaking him roughly by the shoulder, he cried:
"My God, Clayton, are you all mad here? Don''t you know
you are nearly surrounded by fire? Where is Miss Porter?"
Clayton sprang to his feet. He did not recognize the man,
but he understood the words and was upon the veranda in a bound.
"Scott!" he cried, and then, dashing back into the house,
"Jane! Jane! where are you?"
In an instant Esmeralda, Professor Porter and Mr. Philander
had joined the two men.
"Where is Miss Jane?" cried Clayton, seizing Esmeralda by
the shoulders and shaking her roughly.
"Oh, Gaberelle, Mister Clayton, she done gone for a walk."
"Hasn''t she come back yet?" and, without waiting for a reply,
Clayton dashed out into the yard, followed by the others.
"Which way did she go?" cried the black-haired giant of Esmeralda.
"Down that road," cried the frightened woman, pointing
toward the south where a mighty wall of roaring flames shut
out the view.
"Put these people in the other car," shouted the stranger to
Clayton. "I saw one as I drove up--and get them out of here
by the north road.
"Leave my car here. If I find Miss Porter we shall need it.
If I don''t, no one will need it. Do as I say," as Clayton
hesitated, and then they saw the lithe figure bound away cross
the clearing toward the northwest where the forest still stood,
untouched by flame.
In each rose the unaccountable feeling that a great
responsibility had been raised from their shoulders; a kind
of implicit confidence in the power of the stranger to save
Jane if she could be saved.
"Who was that?" asked Professor Porter.
"I do not know," replied Clayton. "He called me by name
and he knew Jane, for he asked for her. And he called
Esmeralda by name."
"There was something most startlingly familiar about him,"
exclaimed Mr. Philander, "And yet, bless me, I know I never
saw him before."
"Tut, tut!" cried Professor Porter. "Most remarkable!
Who could it have been, and why do I feel that Jane is safe,
now that he has set out in search of her?"
"I can''t tell you, Professor," said Clayton soberly, "but I
know I have the same uncanny feeling."
"But come," he cried, "we must get out of here ourselves,
or we shall be shut off," and the party hastened toward
Clayton''s car.
When Jane turned to retrace her steps homeward, she was
alarmed to note how near the smoke of the forest fire
seemed, and as she hastened onward her alarm became almost
a panic when she perceived that the rushing flames were
rapidly forcing their way between herself and the cottage.
At length she was compelled to turn into the dense thicket
and attempt to force her way to the west in an effort to circle
around the flames and reach the house.
In a short time the futility of her attempt became apparent
and then her one hope lay in retracing her steps to the road
and flying for her life to the south toward the town.
The twenty minutes that it took her to regain the road was
all that had been needed to cut off her retreat as effectually as
her advance had been cut off before.
A short run down the road brought her to a horrified
stand, for there before her was another wall of flame. An
arm of the main conflagration had shot out a half mile south
of its parent to embrace this tiny strip of road in its
implacable clutches.
Jane knew that it was useless again to attempt to force her
way through the undergrowth.
She had tried it once, and failed. Now she realized that it
would be but a matter of minutes ere the whole space between
the north and the south would be a seething mass of
billowing flames.
Calmly the girl kneeled down in the dust of the roadway
and prayed for strength to meet her fate bravely, and for the
delivery of her father and her friends from death.
Suddenly she heard her name being called aloud through
the forest:
"Jane! Jane Porter!" It rang strong and clear, but in a
strange voice.
"Here!" she called in reply. "Here! In the roadway!"
Then through the branches of the trees she saw a figure
swinging with the speed of a squirrel.
A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them
and she could no longer see the man who was speeding toward
her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then
she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and
the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.
She opened her eyes.
Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.
About her was the waving foliage of the forest.
From tree to tree swung the giant figure which bore her,
and it seemed to Jane that she was living over in a dream the
experience that had been hers in that far African jungle.
Oh, if it were but the same man who had borne her so
swiftly through the tangled verdure on that other day! but
that was impossible! Yet who else in all the world was there
with the strength and agility to do what this man was now doing?
She stole a sudden glance at the face close to hers, and
then she gave a little frightened gasp. It was he!
"My forest man!" she murmured, "No, I must be delerious!"
"Yes, your man, Jane Porter. Your savage, primeval man
come out of the jungle to claim his mate--the woman who
ran away from him," he added almost fiercely.
"I did not run away," she whispered. "I would only consent
to leave when they had waited a week for you to return."
They had come to a point beyond the fire now, and he had
turned back to the clearing.
Side by side they were walking toward the cottage. The
wind had changed once more and the fire was burning back
upon itself--another hour like that and it would be burned out.
"Why did you not return?" she asked.
"I was nursing D''Arnot. He was badly wounded."
"Ah, I knew it!" she exclaimed.
"They said you had gone to join the blacks--that they
were your people."
He laughed.
"But you did not believe them, Jane?"
"No;--what shall I call you?" she asked. "What is your name?"
"I was Tarzan of the Apes when you first knew me," he said.
"Tarzan of the Apes!" she cried--"and that was your note
I answered when I left?"
"Yes, whose did you think it was?"
"I did not know; only that it could not be yours, for Tarzan
of the Apes had written in English, and you could not
understand a word of any language."
Again he laughed.
"It is a long story, but it was I who wrote what I could not
speak--and now D''Arnot has made matters worse by teaching
me to speak French instead of English.
"Come," he added, "jump into my car, we must overtake
your father, they are only a little way ahead."
As they drove along, he said:
"Then when you said in your note to Tarzan of the Apes
that you loved another--you might have meant me?"
"I might have," she answered, simply.
"But in Baltimore--Oh, how I have searched for you--they
told me you would possibly be married by now. That a
man named Canler had come up here to wed you. Is that true?"
"Yes."
"Do you love him?"
"No."
"Do you love me?"
She buried her face in her hands.
"I am promised to another. I cannot answer you, Tarzan
of the Apes," she cried.
"You have answered. Now, tell me why you would marry
one you do not love."
"My father owes him money."
Suddenly there came back to Tarzan the memory of the
letter he had read--and the name Robert Canler and the
hinted trouble which he had been unable to understand then.
He smiled.
"If your father had not lost the treasure you would not feel
forced to keep your promise to this man Canler?"
"I could ask him to release me."
"And if he refused?"
"I have given my promise."
He was silent for a moment. The car was plunging along the
uneven road at a reckless pace, for the fire showed threateningly
at their right, and another change of the wind might sweep it
on with raging fury across this one avenue of escape.
Finally they passed the danger point, and Tarzan reduced
their speed.
"Suppose I should ask him?" ventured Tarzan.
"He would scarcely accede to the demand of a stranger,"
said the girl. "Especially one who wanted me himself."
"Terkoz did," said Tarzan, grimly.
Jane shuddered and looked fearfully up at the giant figure
beside her, for she knew that he meant the great anthropoid
he had killed in her defense.
"This is not the African jungle," she said. "You are no
longer a savage beast. You are a gentleman, and gentlemen
do not kill in cold blood."
"I am still a wild beast at heart," he said, in a low voice,
as though to himself.
Again they were silent for a time.
"Jane," said the man, at length, "if you were free, would
you marry me?"
She did not reply at once, but he waited patiently.
The girl was trying to collect her thoughts.
What did she know of this strange creature at her side?
What did he know of himself? Who was he? Who, his parents?
Why, his very name echoed his mysterious origin and his
savage life.
He had no name. Could she be happy with this jungle
waif? Could she find anything in common with a husband
whose life had been spent in the tree tops of an African
wilderness, frolicking and fighting with fierce anthropoids;
tearing his food from the quivering flank of fresh-killed prey,
sinking his strong teeth into raw flesh, and tearing away his
portion while his mates growled and fought about him for
their share?
Could he ever rise to her social sphere? Could she bear to
think of sinking to his? Would either be happy in such a
horrible misalliance?
"You do not answer," he said. "Do you shrink from
wounding me?"
"I do not know what answer to make," said Jane sadly. "I
do not know my own mind."
"You do not love me, then?" he asked, in a level tone.
"Do not ask me. You will be happier without me. You
were never meant for the formal restrictions and
conventionalities of society--civilization would become
irksome to you, and in a little while you would long for the
freedom of your old life--a life to which I am as totally
unfitted as you to mine."
"I think I understand you," he replied quietly. "I shall not
urge you, for I would rather see you happy than to be happy
myself. I see now that you could not be happy with--an ape."
There was just the faintest tinge of bitterness in his voice.
"Don''t," she remonstrated. "Don''t say that. You do not
understand."
But before she could go on a sudden turn in the road
brought them into the midst of a little hamlet.
Before them stood Clayton''s car surrounded by the party
he had brought from the cottage.

Chapter 28
Conclusion
At the sight of Jane, cries of relief and delight broke from
every lip, and as Tarzan''s car stopped beside the other,
Professor Porter caught his daughter in his arms.
For a moment no one noticed Tarzan, sitting silently in his seat.
Clayton was the first to remember, and, turning, held out
his hand.
"How can we ever thank you?" he exclaimed. "You have
saved us all. You called me by name at the cottage, but I do
not seem to recall yours, though there is something very
familiar about you. It is as though I had known you well under
very different con***ions a long time ago."
Tarzan smiled as he took the proffered hand.
"You are quite right, Monsieur Clayton," he said, in French.
"You will pardon me if I do not speak to you in English.
I am just learning it, and while I understand it fairly
well I speak it very poorly."
"But who are you?" insisted Clayton, speaking in French
this time himself.
"Tarzan of the Apes."
Clayton started back in surprise.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "It is true."
And Professor Porter and Mr. Philander pressed forward to add
their thanks to Clayton''s, and to voice their surprise and
pleasure at seeing their jungle friend so far from his savage home.
The party now entered the modest little hostelry, where
Clayton soon made arrangements for their entertainment.
They were sitting in the little, stuffy parlor when the distant
chugging of an approaching automobile caught their attention.
Mr. Philander, who was sitting near the window, looked
out as the car drew in sight, finally stopping beside
the other automobiles.
"Bless me!" said Mr. Philander, a shade of annoyance in
his tone. "It is Mr. Canler. I had hoped, er--I had thought
or--er--how very happy we should be that he was not caught
in the fire," he ended lamely.
"Tut, tut! Mr. Philander," said Professor Porter. "Tut,
tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before
speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a
thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence."
"Bless me, yes!" acquiesced Mr. Philander. "But who is the
clerical appearing gentleman with him?"
Jane blanched.
Clayton moved uneasily in his chair.
Professor Porter removed his spectacles nervously, and breathed
upon them, but replaced them on his nose without wiping.
The ubiquitous Esmeralda grunted.
Only Tarzan did not comprehend.
Presently Robert Canler burst into the room.
"Thank God!" he cried. "I feared the worst, until I saw
your car, Clayton. I was cut off on the south road and had to
go away back to town, and then strike east to this road. I
thought we''d never reach the cottage."
No one seemed to enthuse much. Tarzan eyed Robert Canler
as Sabor eyes her prey.
Jane glanced at him and coughed nervously.
"Mr. Canler," she said, "this is Monsieur Tarzan, an old friend."
Canler turned and extended his hand. Tarzan rose and
bowed as only D''Arnot could have taught a gentleman to do
it, but he did not seem to see Canler''s hand.
Nor did Canler appear to notice the oversight.
"This is the Reverend Mr. Tousley, Jane," said Canler, turning
to the clerical party behind him. "Mr. Tousley, Miss Porter."
Mr. Tousley bowed and beamed.
Canler introduced him to the others.
"We can have the ceremony at once, Jane," said Canler.
"Then you and I can catch the midnight train in town."
Tarzan understood the plan instantly. He glanced out of
half-closed eyes at Jane, but he did not move.
The girl hesitated. The room was tense with the silence of
taut nerves.
All eyes turned toward Jane, awaiting her reply.
"Can''t we wait a few days?" she asked. "I am all unstrung.
I have been through so much today."
Canler felt the hostility that emanated from each member
of the party. It made him angry.
"We have waited as long as I intend to wait," he said
roughly. "You have promised to marry me. I shall be played
with no longer. I have the license and here is the preacher.
Come Mr. Tousley; come Jane. There are plenty of witnesses
--more than enough," he added with a disagreeable inflection;
and taking Jane Porter by the arm, he started to lead
her toward the waiting minister.
But scarcely had he taken a single step ere a heavy hand
closed upon his arm with a grip of steel.
Another hand shot to his throat and in a moment he was being
shaken high above the floor, as a cat might shake a mouse.
Jane turned in horrified surprise toward Tarzan.
And, as she looked into his face, she saw the crimson band
upon his forehead that she had seen that other day in far
distant Africa, when Tarzan of the Apes had closed in mortal
combat with the great anthropoid--Terkoz.
She knew that murder lay in that savage heart, and with a little
cry of horror she sprang forward to plead with the ape-man.
But her fears were more for Tarzan than for Canler. She
realized the stern retribution which justice metes to the murderer.
Before she could reach them, however, Clayton had
jumped to Tarzan''s side and attempted to drag Canler from
his grasp.
With a single sweep of one mighty arm the Englishman
was hurled across the room, and then Jane laid a firm white
hand upon Tarzan''s wrist, and looked up into his eyes.
"For my sake," she said.
The grasp upon Canler''s throat relaxed.
Tarzan looked down into the beautiful face before him.
"Do you wish this to live?" he asked in surprise.
"I do not wish him to die at your hands, my friend," she
replied. "I do not wish you to become a murderer."
Tarzan removed his hand from Canler''s throat.
"Do you release her from her promise?" he asked. "It is
the price of your life."
Canler, gasping for breath, nodded.
"Will you go away and never molest her further?"
Again the man nodded his head, his face distorted by fear
of the death that had been so close.
Tarzan released him, and Canler staggered toward the
door. In another moment he was gone, and the terror-
stricken preacher with him.
Tarzan turned toward Jane.
"May I speak with you for a moment, alone," he asked.
The girl nodded and started toward the door leading to the
narrow veranda of the little hotel. She passed out to await
Tarzan and so did not hear the conversation which followed.
"Wait," cried Professor Porter, as Tarzan was about to follow.
The professor had been stricken dumb with surprise by the
rapid developments of the past few minutes.
"Before we go further, sir, I should like an explanation of
the events which have just transpired. By what right, sir, did
you interfere between my daughter and Mr. Canler? I had
promised him her hand, sir, and regardless of our personal
likes or dislikes, sir, that promise must be kept."
"I interfered, Professor Porter," replied Tarzan, "because
your daughter does not love Mr. Canler--she does not wish
to marry him. That is enough for me to know."
"You do not know what you have done," said Professor
Porter. "Now he will doubtless refuse to marry her."
"He most certainly will," said Tarzan, emphatically.
"And further," added Tarzan, "you need not fear that your
pride will suffer, Professor Porter, for you will be able to pay
the Canler person what you owe him the moment you reach home."
"Tut, tut, sir!" exclaimed Professor Porter. "What do you
mean, sir?"
"Your treasure has been found," said Tarzan.
"What--what is that you are saying?" cried the professor.
"You are mad, man. It cannot be."
"It is, though. It was I who stole it, not knowing either its
value or to whom it belonged. I saw the sailors bury it, and,
ape-like, I had to dig it up and bury it again elsewhere. When
D''Arnot told me what it was and what it meant to you I returned
to the jungle and recovered it. It had caused so much
crime and suffering and sorrow that D''Arnot thought it best
not to attempt to bring the treasure itself on here, as had
been my intention, so I have brought a letter of cre*** instead.
"Here it is, Professor Porter," and Tarzan drew an envelope
from his pocket and handed it to the astonished professor,
"two hundred and forty-one thousand dollars. The treasure
was most carefully appraised by experts, but lest there
should be any question in your mind, D''Arnot himself bought
it and is holding it for you, should you prefer the treasure
to the cre***."
"To the already great burden of the obligations we owe you,
sir," said Professor Porter, with trembling voice, "is now
added this greatest of all services. You have given me the
means to save my honor."
Clayton, who had left the room a moment after Canler,
now returned.
"Pardon me," he said. "I think we had better try to reach
town before dark and take the first train out of this forest. A
native just rode by from the north, who reports that the fire
is moving slowly in this direction."
This announcement broke up further conversation, and the
entire party went out to the waiting automobiles.
Clayton, with Jane, the professor and Esmeralda occupied
Clayton''s car, while Tarzan took Mr. Philander in with him.
"Bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Philander, as the car moved off
after Clayton. "Who would ever have thought it possible! The
last time I saw you you were a veritable wild man, skipping
about among the branches of a tropical African forest, and
now you are driving me along a Wisconsin road in a French
automobile. Bless me! But it is most remarkable."
"Yes," assented Tarzan, and then, after a pause, "Mr. Philander,
do you recall any of the details of the finding and burying of
three skeletons found in my cabin beside that African jungle?"
"Very distinctly, sir, very distinctly," replied Mr. Philander.
"Was there anything peculiar about any of those skeletons?"
Mr. Philander eyed Tarzan narrowly.
"Why do you ask?"
"It means a great deal to me to know," replied Tarzan.
"Your answer may clear up a mystery. It can do no worse, at
any rate, than to leave it still a mystery. I have been
entertaining a theory concerning those skeletons for the past
two months, and I want you to answer my question to the best of
your knowledge--were the three skeletons you buried all
human skeletons?"
"No," said Mr. Philander, "the smallest one, the one found
in the crib, was the skeleton of an anthropoid ape."
"Thank you," said Tarzan.
In the car ahead, Jane was thinking fast and furiously. She
had felt the purpose for which Tarzan had asked a few words
with her, and she knew that she must be prepared to give
him an answer in the very near future.
He was not the sort of person one could put off, and somehow
that very thought made her wonder if she did not really
fear him.
And could she love where she feared?
She realized the spell that had been upon her in the depths
of that far-off jungle, but there was no spell of enchantment
now in prosaic Wisconsin.
Nor did the immaculate young Frenchman appeal to the
primal woman in her, as had the stalwart forest god.
Did she love him? She did not know--now.
She glanced at Clayton out of the corner of her eye. Was
not here a man trained in the same school of environment in
which she had been trained--a man with social position and
culture such as she had been taught to consider as the prime
essentials to congenial association?
Did not her best judgment point to this young English nobleman,
whose love she knew to be of the sort a civilized woman
should crave, as the logical mate for such as herself?
Could she love Clayton? She could see no reason why she
could not. Jane was not coldly calculating by nature, but
training, environment and here***y had all combined to teach
her to reason even in matters of the heart.
That she had been carried off her feet by the strength of
the young giant when his great arms were about her in the
distant African forest, and again today, in the Wisconsin
woods, seemed to her only attributable to a temporary mental
reversion to type on her part--to the psychological appeal of
the primeval man to the primeval woman in her nature.
If he should never touch her again, she reasoned, she would
never feel attracted toward him. She had not loved him, then.
It had been nothing more than a passing hallucination,
super-induced by excitement and by personal contact.
Excitement would not always mark their future relations,
should she marry him, and the power of personal contact
eventually would be dulled by familiarity.
Again she glanced at Clayton. He was very handsome and every
inch a gentleman. She should be very proud of such a husband.
And then he spoke--a minute sooner or a minute later might
have made all the difference in the world to three lives
--but chance stepped in and pointed out to Clayton the
psychological moment.
"You are free now, Jane," he said. "Won''t you say yes--I
will devote my life to making you very happy."
"Yes," she whispered.
That evening in the little waiting room at the station Tarzan
caught Jane alone for a moment.
"You are free now, Jane," he said, "and _I_ have come
across the ages out of the dim and distant past from the lair
of the primeval man to claim you--for your sake I have become
a civilized man--for your sake I have crossed oceans
and continents--for your sake I will be whatever you will me
to be. I can make you happy, Jane, in the life you know and
love best. Will you marry me?"
For the first time she realized the depths of the man''s love
--all that he had accomplished in so short a time solely for
love of her. Turning her head she buried her face in her arms.
What had she done? Because she had been afraid she
might succumb to the pleas of this giant, she had burned her
bridges behind her--in her groundless apprehension that she
might make a terrible mistake, she had made a worse one.
And then she told him all--told him the truth word by word,
without attempting to shield herself or condone her error.
"What can we do?" he asked. "You have admitted that you
love me. You know that I love you; but I do not know the
ethics of society by which you are governed. I shall leave the
decision to you, for you know best what will be for your
eventual welfare."
"I cannot tell him, Tarzan," she said. "He too, loves me,
and he is a good man. I could never face you nor any other
honest person if I repudiated my promise to Mr. Clayton. I
shall have to keep it--and you must help me bear the burden,
though we may not see each other again after tonight."
The others were entering the room now and Tarzan turned
toward the little window.
But he saw nothing outside--within he saw a patch of
greensward surrounded by a matted mass of gorgeous tropical
plants and flowers, and, above, the waving foliage of
mighty trees, and, over all, the blue of an equatorial sky.
In the center of the greensward a young woman sat upon a
little mound of earth, and beside her sat a young giant.
They ate pleasant fruit and looked into each other''s eyes and
smiled. They were very happy, and they were all alone.
His thoughts were broken in upon by the station agent who
entered asking if there was a gentleman by the name of Tarzan
in the party.
"I am Monsieur Tarzan," said the ape-man.
"Here is a message for you, forwarded from Baltimore; it
is a cablegram from Paris."
Tarzan took the envelope and tore it open. The message
was from D''Arnot.
It read:
Fingerprints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations.
D''ARNOT.
As Tarzan finished reading, Clayton entered and came toward
him with extended hand.
Here was the man who had Tarzan''s title, and Tarzan''s estates,
and was going to marry the woman whom Tarzan loved--the
woman who loved Tarzan. A single word from Tarzan would
make a great difference in this man''s life.
It would take away his title and his lands and his castles,
and--it would take them away from Jane Porter also.
"I say, old man," cried Clayton, "I haven''t had a chance to
thank you for all you''ve done for us. It seems as though you
had your hands full saving our lives in Africa and here.
"I''m awfully glad you came on here. We must get better
acquainted. I often thought about you, you know, and the
remarkable circumstances of your environment.
"If it''s any of my business, how the devil did you ever get
into that bally jungle?"
"I was born there," said Tarzan, quietly. "My mother was
an Ape, and of course she couldn''t tell me much about it.
I never knew who my father was."
FOR THE
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LORD GREYSTOKE
READ THE RETURN OF TARZAN