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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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."
A very necessary feature of the expiation is the marksmanship of my opponent. Wherefore, then, should I be dissatisfied? Have you not yourself told me that Count de Coude is a splendid marksman?" "You mean that you hope to be killed?" exclaimed D'Arnot, in horror. "I cannot say that I hope to be; but you must admit that there is little reason to believe that I shall not be killed."
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