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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.
"I fear," mused Tarzan, half aloud, "that Olga has thrown away her twenty thousand francs." He read over that part of D'Arnot's letter several times in which he had quoted from his conversation with Jane Porter. Tarzan derived a rather pathetic happiness from it, but it was better than no happiness at all. The following three weeks were quite uneventful.
Had D'Arnot known the thing that was in the ape-man's mind that had been in his mind almost from the first intimation that De Coude would call him to account on the field of honor he would have been even more horrified than he was. In silence they entered D'Arnot's great car, and in similar silence they sped over the dim road that leads to Etamps. Each man was occupied with his own thoughts.
He read it twice before he could fully grasp the terrific weight of meaning that it bore to him. When he had picked it up he had been an English nobleman, the proud and wealthy possessor of vast estates a moment later he had read it, and he knew that he was an untitled and penniless beggar. It was D'Arnot's cablegram to Tarzan, and it read: Finger prints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations.
It was with feelings of the keenest elation that he hastened home to bear the good news to D'Arnot. At last he was to be of some value in the world. He was to earn money, and, best of all, to travel and see the world. He could scarcely wait to get well inside D'Arnot's sitting room before he burst out with the glad tidings. D'Arnot was not so pleased.
They shall hear Lieutenant D'Arnot's story, and then I shall leave it to their discretion to say whether you shall be prosecuted or not. "You have much to learn about the ways of civilization. Things that seem strange or unnecessary to you, you must learn to accept until you are able to judge the motives behind them. The officers whom you attacked were but doing their duty.
He and D'Arnot stepped back a few paces to be out of the line of fire as the men paced slowly apart. Six! Seven! Eight! There were tears in D'Arnot's eyes. He loved Tarzan very much. Nine! Another pace, and the poor lieutenant gave the signal he so hated to give. To him it sounded the doom of his best friend. Quickly De Coude wheeled and fired. Tarzan gave a little start.
But the doctor insisted upon stretching him upon the sward, and tinkering with him until the wounds were cleansed and the flow of blood checked. One result of the duel was that they all rode back to Paris together in D'Arnot's car, the best of friends. De Coude was so relieved to have had this double assurance of his wife's loyalty that he felt no rancor at all toward Tarzan.
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