The Return of Tarzan | Page 4

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1
The Affair on the Liner 2 Forging Bonds of Hate and ----? 3 What
Happened in the Rue Maule 4 The Countess Explains 5 The Plot That
Failed 6 A Duel 7 The Dancing Girl of Sidi Aissa 8 The Fight in the
Desert 9 Numa "El Adrea" 10 Through the Valley of the Shadow 11
John Caldwell, London 12 Ships That Pass 13 The Wreck of the "Lady
Alice" 14 Back to the Primitive 15 From Ape to Savage 16 The Ivory
Raiders 17 The White Chief of the Waziri 18 The Lottery of Death 19
The City of Gold 20 La 21 The Castaways 22 The Treasure Vaults of
Opar 23 The Fifty Frightful Men 24 How Tarzan Came Again to Opar
25 Through the Forest Primeval 26 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