Shaking him roughly by the shoulder, he cried:
“My God, Clayton, are you all mad here? Don’t you know you are nearly surrounded by fire? Where is Miss Porter?”
Clayton sprang to his feet. He did not recognize the man, but he understood the words and was upon the veranda in a bound.
“Scott!” he cried, and then, dashing back into the house, “Jane! Jane! where are you?”
In an instant Esmeralda, Professor Porter and Mr. Philander had joined the two men.
“Where is Miss Jane?” cried Clayton, seizing Esmeralda by the shoulders and shaking her roughly.
“Oh, Gaberelle, Mister Clayton, she done gone for a walk.”
“Hasn’t she come back yet?” and, without waiting for a reply, Clayton dashed out into the yard, followed by the others.
“Which way did she go?” cried the black-haired giant of Esmeralda.
“Down that road,” cried the frightened woman, pointing toward the south where a mighty wall of roaring flames shut out the view.
“Put these people in the other car,” shouted the stranger to Clayton. “I saw one as I drove up—and get them out of here by the north road.
“Leave my car here. If I find Miss Porter we shall need it. If I don’t, no one will need it. Do as I say,” as Clayton hesitated, and then they saw the lithe figure bound away cross the clearing toward the northwest where the forest still stood, untouched by flame.
In each rose the unaccountable feeling that a great responsibility had been raised from their shoulders; a kind of implicit confidence in the power of the stranger to save Jane if she could be saved.
“Who was that?” asked Professor Porter.
“I do not know,” replied Clayton. “He called me by name and he knew Jane, for he asked for her. And he called Esmeralda by name.”
“There was something most startling familiar about him,” exclaimed Mr. Philander, “And yet, bless me, I know I never saw him before.”
“Tut, tut!” cried Professor Porter. “Most remarkable! Who could it have been, and why do I feel that Jane is safe, now that he has set out in search of her?”
“I can’t tell you, Professor,” said Clayton soberly, “but I know I have the same uncanny feeling.”
“But come,” he cried, “we must get out of here ourselves, or we shall be shut off,” and the party hastened toward Clayton’s car.
When Jane turned to retrace her steps homeward, she was alarmed to note how near the smoke of the forest fire seemed, and as she hastened onward her alarm became almost a panic when she perceived that the rushing flames were rapidly forcing their way between herself and the cottage.
At length she was compelled to turn into the dense thicket and attempt to force her way to the west in an effort to circle around the flames and reach the house.
In a short time the futility of her attempt became apparent and then her one hope lay in retracing her steps to the road and flying for her life to the south toward the town.
The twenty minutes that it took her to regain the road was all that had been needed to cut off her retreat as effectually as her advance had been cut off before.
A short run down the road brought her to a horrified stand, for there before her was another wall of flame. An arm of the main conflagration had shot out a half mile south of its parent to embrace this tiny strip of road in its implacable clutches.
Jane knew that it was useless again to attempt to force her way through the undergrowth.
She had tried it once, and failed. Now she realized that it would be but a matter of minutes ere the whole space between the north and the south would be a seething mass of billowing flames.
Calmly the girl kneeled down in the dust of the roadway and prayed for strength to meet her fate bravely, and for the delivery of her father and her friends from death.
Suddenly she heard her name being called aloud through the forest:
“Jane! Jane Porter!” It rang strong and clear, but in a strange voice.
“Here!” she called in reply. “Here! In the roadway!”
Then through the branches of the trees she saw a figure swinging with the speed of a squirrel.
A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them and she could no longer see the man who was speeding toward her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.
She opened her eyes.
Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.
About her was the waving foliage of the forest.
From tree to tree swung the giant figure which bore her, and it seemed to Jane that she was living over in a dream the experience that had been hers in that far African jungle.
Oh, if it were but the same man who had borne her so swiftly through the tangled verdure on that other day! but that was impossible! Yet who else in all the world was there with the strength and agility to do what this man was now doing?
She stole a sudden glance at the face close to hers, and then she gave a little frightened gasp. It was he!
“My forest man!” she murmured, “No, I must be delirious!”
“Yes, your man, Jane Porter. Your savage, primeval man come out of the jungle to claim his mate—the woman who ran away from him,” he added almost fiercely.
“I did not run away,” she whispered. “I would only consent to leave when they had waited a week for you to return.”
They had come to a point beyond the fire now, and he had turned back to the clearing.
Side by side they were walking toward the cottage. The wind had changed once more and the fire was burning back upon itself—another hour like that and it would be burned out.
“Why did you not return?” she asked.
“I was nursing D’Arnot. He was badly wounded.”
“Ah, I knew it!” she exclaimed.
“They said you had gone to join the blacks—that they were your people.”
He laughed.
“But you did not believe them, Jane?”
“No;—what shall I call you?” she asked. “What is your name?”
“I was Tarzan of the Apes when you first knew me,” he said.
“Tarzan of the Apes!” she cried—“and that was your note I answered when I left?”
“Yes, whose did you think it was?”
“I did not know; only that it could not be yours, for Tarzan of the Apes had written in English, and you could not understand a word of any language.”
Again he laughed.
“It is a long story, but it was I who wrote what I could not speak—and now D’Arnot has made matters worse by teaching me to speak French instead of English.
“Come,” he added, “jump into my car, we must overtake your father, they are only a little way ahead.”
As they drove along, he said:
“Then when you said in your note to Tarzan of the Apes that you loved another—you might have meant me?”
“I might have,” she answered, simply.
“But in Baltimore—Oh, how I have searched for you—they told me you would possibly be married by now. That a man named Canler had come up here to wed you. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love him?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
She buried her face in her hands.
“I am promised to another. I cannot answer you, Tarzan of the Apes,” she cried.
“You have answered. Now, tell me why you would marry one you do not love.”
“My father owes him money.”
Suddenly there came back to Tarzan the memory of the letter he had read—and the name Robert Canler and the hinted trouble which he had been unable to understand then.
He smiled.
“If your father had not lost the treasure you would not feel forced to keep your promise to this man Canler?”
“I could ask him to release me.”
/> “And if he refused?”
“I have given my promise.”
He was silent for a moment. The car was plunging along the uneven road at a reckless pace, for the fire showed threateningly at their right, and another change of the wind might sweep it on with raging fury across this one avenue of escape.
Finally they passed the danger point, and Tarzan reduced their speed.
“Suppose I should ask him?” ventured Tarzan.
“He would scarcely accede to the demand of a stranger,” said the girl. “Especially one who wanted me himself.”
“Terkoz did,” said Tarzan, grimly.
Jane shuddered and looked fearfully up at the giant figure beside her, for she knew that he meant the great anthropoid he had killed in her defense.
“This is not an African jungle,” she said. “You are no longer a savage beast. You are a gentleman, and gentlemen do not kill in cold blood.”
“I am still a wild beast at heart,” he said, in a low voice, as though to himself.
Again they were silent for a time.
“Jane,” said the man, at length, “if you were free, would you marry me?”
She did not reply at once, but he waited patiently.
The girl was trying to collect her thoughts.
What did she know of this strange creature at her side? What did he know of himself? Who was he? Who, his parents?
Why, his very name echoed his mysterious origin and his savage life.
He had no name. Could she be happy with this jungle waif? Could she find anything in common with a husband whose life had been spent in the tree tops of an African wilderness, frolicking and fighting with fierce anthropoids; tearing his food from the quivering flank of fresh-killed prey, sinking his strong teeth into raw flesh, and tearing away his portion while his mates growled and fought about him for their share?
Could he ever rise to her social sphere? Could she bear to think of sinking to his? Would either be happy in such a horrible misalliance?
“You do not answer” he said. “Do you shrink from wounding me?”
“I do not know what answer to make,” said Jane sadly. “I do not know my own mind.”
“You do not love me, then?” he asked, in a level tone.
“Do not ask me. You will be happier without me. You were never meant for the formal restrictions and conventionalities of society— civilization would become irksome to you, and in a little while you would long for the freedom of your old life—a life to which I am as totally unfitted as you to mine.”
“I think I understand you,” he replied quietly. “I shall not urge you, for I would rather see you happy than to be happy myself. I see now that you could not be happy with—an ape.”
There was just the faintest tinge of bitterness in his voice.
“Don’t,” she remonstrated. “Don’t say that. You do not understand.”
But before she could go on a sudden turn in the road brought them into the midst of a little hamlet.
Before them stood Clayton’s car surrounded by the party he had brought from the cottage.
XXVIII
Conclusion
At the sight of Jane, cries of relief and delight broke from every lip, and as Tarzan’s car stopped beside the other, Professor Porter caught his daughter in his arms.
For a moment no one noticed Tarzan, sitting silently in his seat.
Clayton was the first to remember, and, turning, held out his hand.
“How can we ever thank you?” he exclaimed. “You have saved us all. You called me by name at the cottage, but I do not seem to recall yours, though there is something very familiar about you. It is as though I had known you well under very different conditions a long time ago.”
Tarzan smiled as he took the proffered hand.
“You are quite right, Monsieur Clayton,” he said, in French. “You will pardon me if I do not speak to you in English. I am just learning it, and while I understand it fairly well I speak it very poorly.”
“But who are you?” insisted Clayton, speaking in French this time himself.
“Tarzan of the Apes.”
Clayton started back in surprise.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “It is true.”
And Professor Porter and Mr. Philander pressed forward to add their thanks to Clayton’s, and to voice their surprise and pleasure at seeing their jungle friend so far from his savage home.
The party now entered the modest little hostelry, where Clayton soon made arrangements for their entertainment.
They were sitting in the little, stuffy parlor when the distant chugging of an approaching automobile caught their attention.
Mr. Philander, who was sitting near the window, looked out as the car drew in sight, finally stopping beside the other automobiles.
“Bless me!” said Mr. Philander, a shade of annoyance in his tone. “It is Mr. Canler. I had hoped, er—I had thought or—er—how very happy we should be that he was not caught in the fire,” he ended lamely.
“Tut, tut! Mr. Philander,” said Professor Porter. “Tut, tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence.”
“Bless me, yes!” acquiesced Mr. Philander. “But who is the clerical appearing gentleman with him?”
Jane blanched.
Clayton moved uneasily in his chair.
Professor Porter removed his spectacles nervously, and breathed upon them, but replaced them on his nose without wiping.
The ubiquitous Esmeralda grunted.
Only Tarzan did not comprehend.
Presently Robert Canler burst into the room.
“Thank God!” he cried. “I feared the worst, until I saw your car, Clayton. I was cut off on the south road and had to go away back to town, and then strike east to this road. I thought we’d never reach the cottage.”
No one seemed to enthuse much. Tarzan eyed Robert Canler as Sabor eyes her prey.
Jane glanced at him and coughed nervously.
“Mr. Canler,” she said, “this is Monsieur Tarzan, an old friend.”
Canler turned and extended his hand. Tarzan rose and bowed as only D’Arnot could have taught a gentleman to do it, but he did not seem to see Canler’s hand.
Nor did Canler appear to notice the oversight.
“This is the Reverend Mr. Tousley, Jane,” said Canler, turning to the clerical party behind him. “Mr. Tousley, Miss Porter.”
Mr. Tousley bowed and beamed.
Canler introduced him to the others.
“We can have the ceremony at once, Jane,” said Canler. “Then you and I can catch the midnight train in town.”
Tarzan understood the plan instantly. He glanced out of half-closed eyes at Jane, but he did not move.
The girl hesitated. The room was tense with the silence of taut nerves.
All eyes turned toward Jane, awaiting her reply.
“Can’t we wait a few days?” she asked. “I am all unstrung. I have been through so much today.”
Canler felt the hostility that emanated from each member of the party. It made him angry.
“We have waited as long as I intend to wait,” he said roughly. “You have promised to marry me. I shall be played with no longer. I have the license and here is the preacher. Come Mr. Tousley; come Jane. There are plenty of witnesses—more than enough,” he added with a disagreeable inflection; and taking Jane Porter by the arm, he started to lead her toward the waiting minister.
But scarcely had he taken a single step ere a heavy hand closed upon his arm with a grip of steel.
Another hand shot to his throat and in a moment he was being shaken high above the floor, as a cat might shake a mouse.
Jane turned in horrified surprise toward Tarzan.
And, as she looked into his face, she saw the crimson band upon his forehead that she had seen that other day in far distant Africa, when Tarzan of the Apes had closed in mortal combat with
the great anthropoid—Terkoz.
She knew that murder lay in that savage heart, and with a little cry of horror she sprang forward to plead with the ape-man. But her fears were more for Tarzan than for Canler. She realized the stern retribution which justice metes to the murderer.
Before she could reach them, however, Clayton had jumped to Tarzan’s side and attempted to drag Canler from his grasp.
With a single sweep of one mighty arm the Englishman was hurled across the room, and then Jane laid a firm white hand upon Tarzan’s wrist, and looked up into his eyes.
“For my sake,” she said.
The grasp upon Canler’s throat relaxed.
Tarzan looked down into the beautiful face before him.
“Do you wish this to live?” he asked in surprise.
“I do not wish him to die at your hands, my friend,” she replied. “I do not wish you to become a murderer.”
Tarzan removed his hand from Canler’s throat.
“Do you release her from her promise?” he asked. “It is the price of your life.”
Canler, gasping for breath, nodded.
“Will you go away and never molest her further?”
Again the man nodded his head, his face distorted by fear of the death that had been so close.
Tarzan released him, and Canler staggered toward the door. In another moment he was gone, and the terror-stricken preacher with him.
Tarzan turned toward Jane.
“May I speak with you for a moment, alone,” he asked.
The girl nodded and started toward the door leading to the narrow veranda of the little hotel. She passed out to await Tarzan and so did not hear the conversation which followed.
“Wait,” cried Professor Porter, as Tarzan was about to follow.
The professor had been stricken dumb with surprise by the rapid developments of the past few minutes.
“Before we go further, sir, I should like an explanation of the events which have just transpired. By what right, sir, did you interfere between my daughter and Mr. Canler? I had promised him her hand, sir, and regardless of our personal likes or dislikes, sir, that promise must be kept.”
“I interfered, Professor Porter,” replied Tarzan, “because your daughter does not love Mr. Canler—she does not wish to marry him. That is enough for me to know.”