ll the soldiers knew was that they were to be prepared to break camp early the next morning
"No, Paul; I am a little child. I have a new toy, and I am tickled to death."
D'Arnot tried to argue him out of it, but without avail, so pistols it was.
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 extremes—to forget the past and inhibit contemplation of the future.
MY DEAR JEAN:
Since last I wrote you I have been across to London on a matter of
business. I was there but three days. The very first day I came
upon an old friend of yours—quite unexpectedly—in Henrietta
Street. Now you never in the world would guess whom. None other
than Mr. Samuel T. Philander. But it is true. I can see your
look of incredulity. Nor is this all. He insisted that I return
to the hotel with him, and there I found the others—Professor
Archimedes Q. Porter, Miss Porter, and that enormous black woman,
Miss Porter's maid—Esmeralda, you will recall. While I was there
Clayton came in. They are to be married soon, or rather sooner,
for I rather suspect that we shall receive announcements almost
any day. On account of his father's death it is to be a very quiet
affair—only blood relatives.
While I was alone with Mr. Philander the old fellow became rather
confidential. Said Miss Porter had already postponed the wedding
The result was electrical. Never before had he been so close to her. In startled guilt they looked suddenly into each other's eyes, and where Olga de Coude should have been strong she was weak, for she crept closer into the man's arms, and clasped her own about his neck. And Tarzan of the Apes? He took the panting figure into his mighty arms, and covered the hot lips with kisses.
Raoul de Coude made hurried excuses to his host after he had read the note handed him by the ambassador's butler. Never afterward could he recall the nature of the excuses he made. Everything was quite a blur to him up to the time that he stood on the threshold of his own home. Then he became very cool, moving quietly and with caution. For some inexplicable reason Jacques had the door open before he was halfway to the steps. It did not strike him at the time as being unusual, though afterward he remarked it.
Very softly he tiptoed up the stairs and along the gallery to the door of his wife's boudoir. In his hand was a heavy walking stick—in his heart, murder.
Olga was the first to see him. With a horrified shriek she tore herself from Tarzan's arms, and the ape-man turned just in time to ward with his arm a terrific blow that De Coude had aimed at his head. Once, twice, three times the heavy stick fell with lightning rapidity, and each blow aided in the transition of the ape-man back to the primordial.
With the low, guttural snarl of the bull ape he sprang for the Frenchman. The great stick was torn from his grasp and broken in two as though it had been matchwood, to be flung aside as the now infuriated beast charged for his adversary's throat. Olga de Coude stood a horrified spectator of the terrible scene which ensued during the next brief moment, then she sprang to where Tarzan was murdering her husband