Chapter II Forging Bonds of Hate and ——?
Chapter III What Happened in the Rue Maule
Chapter IV The Countess Explains
Chapter V The Plot That Failed
Chapter VI A Duel
Chapter VII The Dancing Girl of Sidi Aissa
Chapter VIII The Fight in the Desert
Chapter IX Numa “El Adrea”
Chapter X Through the Valley of the Shadow
Chapter XI John Caldwell, London
Chapter XII Ships That Pass
Chapter XIII The Wreck of the “Lady Alice”
Chapter XIV Back to the Primitive
Chapter XV From Ape to Savage
Chapter XVI The Ivory Raiders
Chapter XVII The White Chief of the Waziri
Chapter XVIII The Lottery of Death
Chapter XIX The City of Gold
Chapter XX La
Chapter XXI The Castaways
Chapter XXII The Treasure Vaults of Opar
Chapter XXIII The Fifty Frightful Men
Chapter XXIV How Tarzan Came Again to Opar
Chapter XXV Through the Forest Primeval
Chapter XXVI The Passing of the Ape-Man
Chapter I
The Affair on the Liner
“Magnifique!” ejaculated the Countess de Coude, beneath her breath.
“Eh?” questioned the count, turning toward his young wife. “What is it
that is magnificent?” and the count bent his eyes in various directions
in quest of the object of her admiration.
“Oh, nothing at all, my dear,” replied the countess, a slight flush
momentarily coloring her already pink cheek. “I was but recalling with
admiration those stupendous skyscrapers, as they call them, of New
York,” and the fair countess settled herself more comfortably in her
steamer chair, and resumed the magazine which “nothing at all” had
caused her to let fall upon her lap.
Her husband again buried himself in his book, but not without a mild
wonderment that three days out from New York his countess should
suddenly have realized an admiration for the very buildings she had but
recently characterized as horrid.
Presently the count put down his book. “It is very tiresome, Olga,” he
said. “I think that I shall hunt up some others who may be equally
bored, and see if we cannot find enough for a game of cards.”
“You are not very gallant, my husband,” replied the young woman,
smiling, “but as I am equally bored I can forgive you. Go and play at
your tiresome old cards, then, if you will.”
When he had gone she let her eyes wander slyly to the figure of a tall
young man stretched lazily in a chair not far distant.
“_Magnifique!_” she breathed once more.
The Countess Olga de Coude was twenty. Her husband forty. She was a
very faithful and loyal wife, but as she had had nothing whatever to do
with the selection of a husband, it is not at all unlikely that she was
not wildly and passionately in love with the one that fate and her
titled Russian father had selected for her. However, simply because she
was surprised into a tiny exclamation of approval at sight of a
splendid young stranger it must not be inferred therefrom that her
thoughts were in any way disloyal to her spouse. She merely admired, as
she might have admired a particularly fine specimen of any species.
Furthermore, the young man was unquestionably good to look at.
As her furtive glance rested upon his profile he rose to leave the
deck. The Countess de Coude beckoned to a passing steward. “Who is that
gentleman?” she asked.
“He is booked, madam, as Monsieur Tarzan, of Africa,” replied the
steward.
“Rather a large estate,” thought the girl, but now her interest was
still further aroused.
As Tarzan walked slowly toward the smoking-room he came unexpectedly
upon two men whispering excitedly just without. He would have
vouchsafed them not even a passing thought but for the strangely guilty
glance that one of them shot in his direction. They reminded Tarzan of
melodramatic villains he had seen at the theaters in Paris. Both were
very dark, and this, in connection with the shrugs and stealthy glances
that accompanied their palpable intriguing, lent still greater force to
the similarity.
Tarzan entered the smoking-room, and sought a chair a little apart from
the others who were there. He felt in no mood for conversation, and as
he sipped his absinth he let his mind run rather sorrowfully over the
past few weeks of his life. Time and again he had wondered if he had
acted wisely in renouncing his birthright to a man to whom he owed
nothing. It is true that he liked Clayton, but—ah, but that was not the
question. It was not for William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, that he
had denied his birth. It was for the woman whom both he and Clayton had
loved, and whom a strange freak of fate had given to Clayton instead of
to him.
That she loved him made the thing doubly difficult to bear, yet he knew
that he could have done nothing less than he did do that night within
the little railway station in the far Wisconsin woods. To him her
happiness was the first consideration of all, and his brief experience
with civilization and civilized men had taught him that without money
and position life to most of them was unendurable.
Jane Porter had been born to both, and had Tarzan taken them away from
her future husband it would doubtless have plunged her into a life of
misery and torture. That she would have spurned Clayton once he had
been stripped of both his title and his estates never for once occurred
to Tarzan, for he credited to others the same honest loyalty that was
so inherent a quality in himself. Nor, in this instance, had he erred.
Could any one thing have further bound Jane Porter to her promise to
Clayton it would have been in the nature of some such misfortune as
this overtaking him.
Tarzan’s thoughts drifted from the past to the future. He tried to look
forward with pleasurable sensations to his return to the jungle of his
birth and boyhood; the cruel, fierce jungle in which he had spent
twenty of his twenty-two years. But who or what of all the myriad
jungle life would there be to welcome his return? Not one. Only Tantor,
the elephant, could he call friend. The others would hunt him or flee
from him as had been their way in the past.
Not even the apes of his own tribe would extend the hand of fellowship
to him.
If civilization had done nothing else for Tarzan of the Apes, it had to
some extent taught him to crave the society of his own kind, and to
feel with genuine pleasure the congenial warmth of companionship. And
in the same ratio had it made any other life distasteful to him. It was
difficult to imagine a world without a friend—without a living thing
who spoke the new tongues which Tarzan had learned to love so well. And
so it was that Tarzan looked with little relish upon the future he had
mapped out for himself.
As he sat musing over his cigarette his eyes fell upon a mirror before
him, and in it he saw reflected a table at which four men sat at cards.
Presently one of them rose to leave, and then another approached, and
Tarzan could see that he courteously offered to fill the vacant chair,
that the game might not be interrupted. He was the smaller of the two
whom Tarzan had seen whispering just outside the smoking-room.
It was this fact that aroused a faint spark of interest in Tarzan, and
so as he speculated upon the future he watched in the mirror the
reflection of the players at the table behind him. Aside from the man
who had but just entered the game Tarzan knew the name of but one of
the other players. It was he who sat opposite the new player, Count
Raoul de Coude, whom an over-attentive steward had pointed out as one
of the celebrities of the passage, describing him as a man high in the
official family of the French minister of war.
Suddenly Tarzan’s attention was riveted upon the picture in the glass.
The other swarthy plotter had entered, and was standing behind the
count’s chair. Tarzan saw him turn and glance furtively about the room,
but his eyes did not rest for a sufficient time upon the mirror to note
the reflection of Tarzan’s watchful eyes. Stealthily the man withdrew
something from his pocket. Tarzan could not discern what the object
was, for the man’s hand covered it.
Slowly the hand approached the count, and then, very deftly, the thing
that was in it was transferred to the count’s pocket. The man remained
standing where he could watch the Frenchman’s cards. Tarzan was
puzzled, but he was all attention now, nor did he permit another detail
of the incident to escape him.
The play went on for some ten minutes after this, until the count won a
considerable wager from him who had last joined the game, and then
Tarzan saw the fellow back of the count’s chair nod his head to his
confederate. Instantly the player arose and pointed a finger at the
count.
“Had I known that monsieur was a professional card sharp I had not been
so ready to be drawn into the game,” he said.
Instantly the count and the two other players were upon their feet.
De Coude’s face went white.
“What do you mean, sir?” he cried. “Do you know to whom you speak?”
“I know that I speak, for the last time, to one who cheats at cards,”
replied the fellow.
The count leaned across the table, and struck the man full in the mouth
with his open palm, and then the others closed in between them.
“There is some mistake, sir,” cried one of the other players. “Why,
this is Count de Coude, of France.”
“If I am mistaken,” said the accuser, “I shall gladly apologize; but
before I do so first let monsieur le count explain the extra cards
which I saw him drop into his side pocket.”
And then the man whom Tarzan had seen drop them there turned to sneak
from the room, but to his annoyance he found the exit barred by a tall,
gray-eyed stranger.
“Pardon,” said the man brusquely, attempting to pass to one side.
“Wait,” said Tarzan.
“But why, monsieur?” exclaimed the other petulantly. “Permit me to
pass, monsieur.”
“Wait,” said Tarzan. “I think that there is a matter in here that you
may doubtless be able to explain.”
The fellow had lost his temper by this time, and with a low oath seized
Tarzan to push him to one side. The ape-man but smiled as he twisted
the big fellow about and, grasping him by the collar of his coat,
escorted him back to the table, struggling, cursing, and striking in
futile remonstrance. It was Nikolas Rokoff’s first experience with the
muscles that had brought their savage owner victorious through
encounters with Numa, the lion, and Terkoz, the great bull ape.
The man who had accused De Coude, and the two others who had been
playing, stood looking expectantly at the count. Several other
passengers had drawn toward the scene of the altercation, and all
awaited the dénouement.
“The fellow is crazy,” said the count. “Gentlemen, I implore that one
of you search me.”
“The accusation is ridiculous.” This from one of the players.
“You have but to slip your hand in the count’s coat pocket and you will
see that the accusation is quite serious,” insisted the accuser. And
then, as the others still hesitated to do so: “Come, I shall do it
myself if no other will,” and he stepped forward toward the count.
“No, monsieur,” said De Coude. “I will submit to a search only at the
hands of a gentleman.”
“It is unnecessary to search the count. The cards are in his pocket. I
myself saw them placed there.”
All turned in surprise toward this new speaker, to behold a very
well-built young man urging a resisting captive toward them by the
scruff of his neck.
“It is a conspiracy,” cried De Coude angrily. “There are no cards in my
coat,” and with that he ran his hand into his pocket. As he did so
tense silence reigned in the little group. The count went dead white,
and then very slowly he withdrew his hand, and in it were three cards.
He looked at them in mute and horrified surprise, and slowly the red of
mortification suffused his face. Expressions of pity and contempt
tinged the features of those who looked on at the death of a man’s
honor.
“It is a conspiracy, monsieur.” It was the gray-eyed stranger who
spoke. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “monsieur le count did not know that
those cards were in his pocket. They were placed there without his
knowledge as he sat at play. From where I sat in that chair yonder I
saw the reflection of it all in the mirror before me. This person whom
I just intercepted in an effort to escape placed the cards in the
count’s pocket.”
De Coude had glanced from Tarzan to the man in his grasp.
“_Mon Dieu_, Nikolas!” he cried. “You?”
Then he turned to his accuser, and eyed him intently for a moment.
“And you, monsieur, I did not recognize you without your beard. It
quite disguises you, Paulvitch. I see it all now. It is quite clear,
gentlemen.”
“What shall we do with them, monsieur?” asked Tarzan. “Turn them over
to the captain?”
“No, my friend,” said the count hastily. “It is a personal matter, and
I beg that you will let it drop. It is sufficient that I have been
exonerated from the charge. The less we have to do with such fellows,
the better. But, monsieur, how can I thank you for the great kindness
you have done me? Permit me to offer you my card, and should the time
come when I may serve you, remember that I am yours to command.”
Tarzan had released Rokoff, who, with his confederate, Paulvitch, had
hastened from the smoking-room. Just as he was leaving, Rokoff turned
to Tarzan. “Monsieur will have ample opportunity to regret his
interference in the affairs of others.”
Tarzan smiled, and then, bowing to the count, handed him his own card.
The count read:
M. JEAN C. TARZAN
“Monsieur Tarzan,” he said, “may indeed wish that he had never
befriended me, for I can assure him that he has won the enmity of two
of the most unmitigated scoundrels in all Europe. Avoid them, monsieur,
by all means.”
“I have had more awe-inspiring enemies, my dear count,” replied Tarzan
with a quiet smile, “yet I am still alive and unworried. I think that
neither of these two will ever find the means to harm me.”
“Let us hope not, monsieur,” said De Coude; “but yet it will do no harm
to be on the alert, and to know that you have made at least one enemy
today who never forgets and never forgives, and in whose malignant
brain there are always hatching new atrocities to perpetrate upon those
who have thwarted or offended him. To say that Nikolas Rokoff is a
devil would be to place a wanton affront upon his satanic majesty.”
That night as Tarzan entered his cabin he found a folded note upon the
floor that had evidently been pushed beneath the door. He opened it and
read:
M. TARZAN:
Doubtless you did not realize the gravity of your offense, or you
would not have done the thing you did today. I am willing to
believe that you acted in ignorance and without any intention to
offend a stranger. For this reason I shall gladly permit you to
offer an apology, and on receiving your assurances that you will
not again interfere in affairs that do not concern you, I shall
drop the matter.
Otherwise—but I am sure that you will see the wisdom of adopting
the course I suggest.
Very respectfully,
NIKOLAS ROKOFF.
Tarzan permitted a grim smile to play about his lips for a moment, then
he promptly dropped the matter from his mind, and went to bed.
In a nearby cabin the Countess de Coude was speaking to her husband.
“Why so grave, my dear Raoul?” she asked. “You have been as glum as
could be all evening. What worries you?”
“Olga, Nikolas is on board. Did you know it?”
“Nikolas!” she exclaimed. “But it is impossible, Raoul. It cannot be.
Nikolas is under arrest in Germany.”
“So I thought myself until I saw him today—him and that other arch
scoundrel, Paulvitch. Olga, I cannot endure his persecution much
longer. No, not even for you. Sooner or later I shall turn him over to
the authorities. In fact, I am half minded to explain all to the
captain before we land. On a French liner it were an easy matter, Olga,
permanently to settle this Nemesis of ours.”
“Oh, no, Raoul!” cried the countess, sinking to her knees before him as
he sat with bowed head upon a divan. “Do not do that. Remember your
promise to me. Tell me, Raoul, that you will not do that. Do not even
threaten him, Raoul.”
De Coude took his wife’s hands in his, and gazed upon her pale and
troubled countenance for some time before he spoke, as though he would
wrest from those beautiful eyes the real reason which prompted her to
shield this man.
“Let it be as you wish, Olga,” he said at length. “I cannot understand.
He has forfeited all claim upon your love, loyalty, or respect. He is a
menace to your life and honor, and the life and honor of your husband.
I trust you may never regret championing him.”
“I do not champion him, Raoul,” she interrupted vehemently. “I believe
that I hate him as much as you do, but—Oh, Raoul, blood is thicker than
water.”
“I should today have liked to sample the consistency of his,” growled
De Coude grimly. “The two deliberately attempted to besmirch my honor,
Olga,” and then he told her of all that had happened in the
smoking-room. “Had it not been for this utter stranger, they had
succeeded, for who would have accepted my unsupported word against the
damning evidence of those cards hidden on my person? I had almost begun
to doubt myself when this Monsieur Tarzan dragged your precious Nikolas
before us, and explained the whole cowardly transaction.”
“Monsieur Tarzan?” asked the countess, in evident surprise.
“Yes. Do you know him, Olga?”
“I have seen him. A steward pointed him out to me.”
“I did not know that he was a celebrity,” said the count.
Olga de Coude changed the subject. She discovered suddenly that she
might find it difficult to explain just why the steward had pointed out
the handsome Monsieur Tarzan to her. Perhaps she flushed the least
little bit, for was not the count, her husband, gazing at her with a
strangely quizzical expression. “Ah,” she thought, “a guilty conscience
is a most suspicious thing.”