Part 3 (2/2)

”I do not admire you the less for your loyalty,” said D'Arnot, ”but the tilad to claim your own Remember what I say, and let us hope that it will be as easy then as it is now You must bear in mind that Professor Porter and Mr Philander are the only people in the world who can swear that the little skeleton found in the cabin with those of your father and mother was that of an infant anthropoid ape, and not the offspring of Lord and Lady Greystoke That evidence is most important They are both old er And then, did it not occur to you that once Miss Porter knew the truth she would break her engageht easily have your title, your estates, and the woht of that?”

Tarzan shook his head ”You do not know her,” he said ”Nothing could bind her closer to her bargain than some misfortune to Clayton She is from an old southern family in America, and southerners pride themselves upon their loyalty”

Tarzan spent the two folloeeks renewing his former brief acquaintance with Paris In the daytialleries He had become an omnivorous reader, and the world of possibilities that were opened to hi fairly appalled him when he contemplated the very infinitesile individual ht hope to acquire even after a lifetime of study and research; but he learned what he could by day, and threw hiht Nor did he find Paris a whit less fertile field for his nocturnal avocation

If he sarettes and drank too much absinth it was because he took civilization as he found it, and did the things that he found his civilized brothers doing The life was a new and alluring one, and in addition he had a sorrow in his breast and a great longing which he knew could never be fulfilled, and so he sought in study and in dissipation--the two extreet the past and inhibit conte in athe art of a certain falimpse of a pair of evil black eyes upon him The man turned and was lost in the crowd at the exit before Tarzan could catch a good look at him, but he was confident that he had seen those eyes before and that they had been fastened on hi accident He had had the uncanny feeling for so watched, and it was in response to this ani within him that he had turned suddenly and surprised the eyes in the very act of watching him

Before he left the otten, nor did he notice the swarthy individual who stepped deeper into the shadows of an opposite doorway as Tarzan ehted amusement hall

Had Tarzan but known it, he had been followed many times from this and other places of amuseht D'Arnot had had another engagement, and Tarzan had come by himself

As he turned in the direction he was accusto from this part of Paris to his apart-place and hurried on ahead at a rapid pace

Tarzan had been wont to traverse the Rue Maule on his way hoht Because it was very quiet and very dark it rele than did the noisy and garish streets surrounding it If you are fa precincts of the Rue Maule If you are not, you need but ask the police about it to learn that in all Paris there is no street to which you should give a wider berth after dark

On this night Tarzan had proceeded soh the dense shadows of the squalid old tenements which line this dismal hen he was attracted by screams and cries for help fro The voice was a woman's Before the echoes of her first cries had died Tarzan was bounding up the stairs and through the dark corridors to her rescue

At the end of the corridor on the third landing a door stood slightly ajar, and froain the same appeal that had lured him from the street Another instant found hihted rooh, old-fashi+oned ures All but one were men The other was a woman of about thirty Her face, ht once have been lovely She stood with one hand at her throat, crouching against the farther wall

”Help, monsieur,” she cried in a low voice as Tarzan entered the roo me”

As Tarzan turned toward the men about him he saw the crafty, evil faces of habitual criminals He wondered that they had made no effort to escape A s his eyes saw, and one of the stealthily frolance that Tarzan had of hi that he saas of reat brute of a fellow tiptoeing upon hieon in his hand, and then, as the man and his confederates saw that he was discovered, there was a concerted rush upon Tarzan from all sides Some of the men drew knives Others picked up chairs, while the felloith the bludgeon raised it high above his head in athat would have crushed Tarzan's head had it ever descended upon it

But the brain, and the agility, and the th and cruel craftiness of Terkoz and Nule were not to be so easily subdued as these apaches of Paris had believed

Selecting his eon, Tarzan charged full upon hi the man a terrific blow on the point of the chin that felled him in his tracks

Then he turned upon the others This was sport He was reveling in the joy of battle and the lust of blood As though it had been but a brittle shell, to break at the least rough usage, the thin veneer of his civilization fell from him, and the ten burly villains found thee beast, against whose steel th was less than futile

At the end of the corridor without stood Rokoff, waiting the outcome of the affair He wished to be sure that Tarzan was dead before he left, but it was not a part of his plan to be one of those within the room when the murder occurred

The woman still stood where she had when Tarzan entered, but her face had undergone a nues with the few minutes which had elapsed From the semblance of distress which it had hen Tarzan first saw it, it had changed to one of craftiness as he had wheeled to e Tarzan had not seen

Later an expression of surprise and then one of horror superseded the others And who entleman her cries had lured to as to have been his death had been suddenly e Instead of softupon a veritable Hercules gone mad

”MON DIEU!” she cried; ”he is a beast!” For the strong, white teeth of the ape-man had found the throat of one of his assailants, and Tarzan fought as he had learned to fight with the great bull apes of the tribe of Kerchak

He was in a dozen places at once, leaping hither and thither about the room in sinuous bounds that reminded the woman of a panther she had seen at the zoo Norist-bone snapped in his iron grip, now a shoulder renched from its socket as he forced a victim's arm backward and upward

With shrieks of pain the men escaped into the hallway as quickly as they could; but even before the first one staggered, bleeding and broken, froh to convince him that Tarzan would not be the one to lie dead in that house this night, and so the Russian had hastened to a nearby den and telephoned the police that amurder on the third floor of Rue Maule, 27

When the officers arrived they found threeupon a filthy bed, her face buried in her arentle the reenforceht the footsteps of the officers hurrying up the stairway had announced--but they were mistaken in the last; it was a wild beast that looked upon theray eyes With the se of civilization had deserted Tarzan, and now he stood at bay, like a lion surrounded by hunters, awaiting the next overt act, and crouching to charge its author