"Nor am I longer promised in marriage.The day before those awful creatures captured me I spoke to Mr.Clayton of my love for you, and he understood then that I could not keep the wicked promise that I had made.It was after we had been miraculously saved from an attacking lion." She paused suddenly and looked up at him, a questioning light in her eyes.
"Tarzan of the Apes," she cried, "it was you who did that thing? It could have been no other."He dropped his eyes, for he was ashamed.
"How could you have gone away and left me?" she cried reproachfully.
"Don't, Jane!" he pleaded."Please don't! You cannot know how I have suffered since for the cruelty of that act, or how I suffered then, first in jealous rage, and then in bitter resentment against the fate that I had not deserved.
I went back to the apes after that, Jane, intending never again to see a human being." He told her then of his life since he had returned to the jungle--of how he had dropped like a plummet from a civilized Parisian to a savage Waziri warrior, and from there back to the brute that he had been raised.
She asked him many questions, and at last fearfully of the things that Monsieur Thuran had told her--of the woman in Paris.
He narrated every detail of his civilized life to her, omitting nothing, for he felt no shame, since his heart always had been true to her.When he had finished he sat looking at her, as though waiting for her judgment, and his sentence.
"I knew that he was not speaking the truth," she said.
"Oh, what a horrible creature he is!"
"You are not angry with me, then?" he asked.
And her reply, though apparently most irrelevant, was truly feminine.
"Is Olga de Coude very beautiful?" she asked.
And Tarzan laughed and kissed her again."Not one-tenth so beautiful as you, dear," he said.
She gave a contented little sigh, and let her head rest against his shoulder.He knew that he was forgiven.
That night Tarzan built a snug little bower high among the swaying branches of a giant tree, and there the tired girl slept, while in a crotch beneath her the ape-man curled, ready, even in sleep, to protect her.
It took them many days to make the long journey to the coast.Where the way was easy they walked hand in hand beneath the arching boughs of the mighty forest, as might in a far-gone past have walked their primeval forbears.
When the underbrush was tangled he took her in his great arms, and bore her lightly through the trees, and the days were all too short, for they were very happy.Had it not been for their anxiety to reach and succor Clayton they would have drawn out the sweet pleasure of that wonderful journey indefinitely.
On the last day before they reached the coast Tarzan caught the scent of men ahead of them--the scent of black men.
He told the girl, and cautioned her to maintain silence.
"There are few friends in the jungle," he remarked dryly.
In half an hour they came stealthily upon a small party of black warriors filing toward the west.As Tarzan saw them he gave a cry of delight--it was a band of his own Waziri.
Busuli was there, and others who had accompanied him to Opar.
At sight of him they danced and cried out in exuberant joy.
For weeks they had been searching for him, they told him.
The blacks exhibited considerable wonderment at the presence of the white girl with him, and when they found that she was to be his woman they vied with one another to do her honor.With the happy Waziri laughing and dancing about them they came to the rude shelter by the shore.
There was no sign of life, and no response to their calls.
Tarzan clambered quickly to the interior of the little tree hut, only to emerge a moment later with an empty tin.
Throwing it down to Busuli, he told him to fetch water, and then he beckoned Jane Porter to come up.