On his arrival in Paris, Tarzan had gone directly tothe apartments of his old friend, D'Arnot, where thenaval lieutenant had scored him roundly for his decisionto renounce the title and estates that were rightly hisfrom his father, John Clayton, the late Lord Greystoke.

"You must be mad, my friend," said D'Arnot, "thus lightlyto give up not alone wealth and position, but an opportunityto prove beyond doubt to all the world that in your veinsflows the noble blood of two of England's most honoredhouses--instead of the blood of a savage she-ape. It isincredible that they could have believed you--Miss Porterleast of all.

"Why, I never did believe it, even back in the wilds ofyour African jungle, when you tore the raw meat of yourkills with mighty jaws, like some wild beast, and wiped yourgreasy hands upon your thighs. Even then, before there wasthe slightest proof to the contrary, I knew that you weremistaken in the belief that Kala was your mother.

"And now, with your father's diary of the terrible lifeled by him and your mother on that wild African shore;with the account of your birth, and, final and mostconvincing proof of all, your own baby finger prints upon thepages of it, it seems incredible to me that you are willingto remain a nameless, penniless vagabond."

"I do not need any better name than Tarzan," replied theape-man; "and as for remaining a penniless vagabond, Ihave no intention of so doing. In fact, the next, and let ushope the last, burden that I shall be forced to put upon yourunselfish friendship will be the finding of employment for me."

"Pooh, pooh!" scoffed D'Arnot. "You know that I did notmean that. Have I not told you a dozen times that I haveenough for twenty men, and that half of what I have isyours? And if I gave it all to you, would it represent eventhe tenth part of the value I place upon your friendship,my Tarzan? Would it repay the services you did me in Africa?I do not forget, my friend, that but for you and yourwondrous bravery I had died at the stake in the villageof Mbonga's cannibals. Nor do I forget that to your self-sacrificing devotion I owe the fact that I recovered from theterrible wounds I received at their hands--I discovered latersomething of what it meant to you to remain with me in theamphitheater of apes while your heart was urging you on tothe coast.

"When we finally came there, and found that Miss Porterand her party had left, I commenced to realize something ofwhat you had done for an utter stranger. Nor am I trying torepay you with money, Tarzan. It is that just at present youneed money; were it sacrifice that I might offer you it werethe same--my friendship must always be yours, because ourtastes are similar, and I admire you. That I cannot command,but the money I can and shall."

"Well," laughed Tarzan, "we shall not quarrel over the money.I must live, and so I must have it; but I shall be morecontented with something to do. You cannot show me yourfriendship in a more convincing manner than to findemployment for me--I shall die of inactivity in a short while.As for my birthright--it is in good hands. Clayton is notguilty of robbing me of it. He truly believes that heis the real Lord Greystoke, and the chances are that he willmake a better English lord than a man who was born andraised in an African jungle. You know that I am but halfcivilized even now. Let me see red in anger but for a moment,and all the instincts of the savage beast that I reallyam, submerge what little I possess of the milder ways ofculture and refinement.

"And then again, had I declared myself I should haverobbed the woman I love of the wealth and position thather marriage to Clayton will now insure to her. I couldnot have done that--could I, Paul?

"Nor is the matter of birth of great importance to me,"he went on, without waiting for a reply. "Raised as I havebeen, I see no worth in man or beast that is not theirs byvirtue of their own mental or physical prowess. And so Iam as happy to think of Kala as my mother as I would beto try to picture the poor, unhappy little English girl whopassed away a year after she bore me. Kala was always kindto me in her fierce and savage way. I must have nursed ather hairy breast from the time that my own mother died.She fought for me against the wild denizens of the forest,and against the savage members of our tribe, with theferocity of real mother love.

"And I, on my part, loved her, Paul. I did not realizehow much until after the cruel spear and the poisoned arrowof Mbonga's black warrior had stolen her away from me. Iwas still a child when that occurred, and I threw myselfupon her dead body and wept out my anguish as a childmight for his own mother. To you, my friend, she wouldhave appeared a hideous and ugly creature, but to me shewas beautiful--so gloriously does love transfigure its object.And so I am perfectly content to remain forever the son ofKala, the she-ape."

"I do not admire you the less for your loyalty," saidD'Arnot, "but the time will come when you will be gladto claim your own. Remember what I say, and let us hopethat it will be as easy then as it is now. You must bear inmind that Professor Porter and Mr. Philander are the onlypeople in the world who can swear that the little skeletonfound in the cabin with those of your father and mother wasthat of an infant anthropoid ape, and not the offspring ofLord and Lady Greystoke. That evidence is most important.They are both old men. They may not live many years longer.And then, did it not occur to you that once Miss Porterknew the truth she would break her engagement with Clayton?You might easily have your title, your estates, and thewoman you love, Tarzan. Had you not thought of that?"

Tarzan shook his head. "You do not know her," he said."Nothing could bind her closer to her bargain than somemisfortune to Clayton. She is from an old southern family inAmerica, and southerners pride themselves upon their loyalty."

Tarzan spent the two following weeks renewing his formerbrief acquaintance with Paris. In the daytime he hauntedthe libraries and picture galleries. He had become anomnivorous reader, and the world of possibilities that wereopened to him in this seat of culture and learning fairlyappalled him when he contemplated the very infinitesimalcrumb of the sum total of human knowledge that a singleindividual might hope to acquire even after a lifetime ofstudy and research; but he learned what he could by day,and threw himself into a search for relaxation and amusementat night. Nor did he find Paris a whit less fertile fieldfor his nocturnal avocation.

If he smoked too many cigarettes and drank too muchabsinth it was because he took civilization as he found it,and did the things that he found his civilized brothersdoing. The life was a new and alluring one, and in additionhe had a sorrow in his breast and a great longing which heknew could never be fulfilled, and so he sought in study andin dissipation--the two extremes--to forget the past andinhibit contemplation of the future.

He was sitting in a music hall one evening, sipping hisabsinth and admiring the art of a certain famous Russiandancer, when he caught a passing glimpse of a pair of evilblack eyes upon him. The man turned and was lost in thecrowd at the exit before Tarzan could catch a good look athim, but he was confident that he had seen those eyes beforeand that they had been fastened on him this eveningthrough no passing accident. He had had the uncanny feelingfor some time that he was being watched, and it was inresponse to this animal instinct that was strong within himthat he had turned suddenly and surprised the eyes in thevery act of watching him.

Before he left the music hall the matter had been forgotten,nor did he notice the swarthy individual who steppeddeeper into the shadows of an opposite doorway as Tarzanemerged from the brilliantly lighted amusement hall.

Had Tarzan but known it, he had been followed many timesfrom this and other places of amusement, but seldom ifever had he been alone. Tonight D'Arnot had had anotherengagement, and Tarzan had come by himself.

As he turned in the direction he was accustomed to takingfrom this part of Paris to his apartments, the watcher acrossthe street ran from his hiding-place and hurried on aheadat a rapid pace.

Tarzan had been wont to traverse the Rue Maule on hisway home at night. Because it was very quiet and verydark it reminded him more of his beloved African junglethan did the noisy and garish streets surrounding it.If you are familiar with your Paris you will recall thenarrow, forbidding precincts of the Rue Maule. If you arenot, you need but ask the police about it to learn that inall Paris there is no street to which you should give awider berth after dark.

On this night Tarzan had proceeded some two squares throughthe dense shadows of the squalid old tenements which linethis dismal way when he was attracted by screams and criesfor help from the third floor of an opposite building.The voice was a woman's. Before the echoes of her firstcries had died Tarzan was bounding up the stairs andthrough the dark corridors to her rescue.

At the end of the corridor on the third landing a doorstood slightly ajar, and from within Tarzan heard again thesame appeal that had lured him from the street.Another instant found him in the center of a dimly-lighted room.An oil lamp burned upon a high, old-fashioned mantel, castingits dim rays over a dozen repulsive figures. All but onewere men. The other was a woman of about thirty. Her face,marked by low passions and dissipation, might once havebeen lovely. She stood with one hand at her throat, crouchingagainst the farther wall.

"Help, monsieur," she cried in a low voice as Tarzanentered the room; "they were killing me."

As Tarzan turned toward the men about him he saw thecrafty, evil faces of habitual criminals. He wondered thatthey had made no effort to escape. A movement behind himcaused him to turn. Two things his eyes saw, and one ofthem caused him considerable wonderment. A man wassneaking stealthily from the room, and in the brief glancethat Tarzan had of him he saw that it was Rokoff.But the other thing that he saw was of more immediate interest.It was a great brute of a fellow tiptoeing upon him frombehind with a huge bludgeon in his hand, and then, asthe man and his confederates saw that he was discovered,there was a concerted rush upon Tarzan from all sides.Some of the men drew knives. Others picked up chairs, while thefellow with the bludgeon raised it high above his head in amighty swing that would have crushed Tarzan's head had itever descended upon it.

But the brain, and the agility, and the muscles that had copedwith the mighty strength and cruel craftiness of Terkoz andNuma in the fastness of their savage jungle were not to be soeasily subdued as these apaches of Paris had believed.

Selecting his most formidable antagonist, the fellow withthe bludgeon, Tarzan charged full upon him, dodging thefalling weapon, and catching the man a terrific blow on thepoint of the chin that felled him in his tracks.

Then he turned upon the others. This was sport. He wasreveling in the joy of battle and the lust of blood. As thoughit had been but a brittle shell, to break at the least roughusage, the thin veneer of his civilization fell from him, andthe ten burly villains found themselves penned in a smallroom with a wild and savage beast, against whose steelmuscles their puny strength was less than futile.

At the end of the corridor without stood Rokoff, waitingthe outcome of the affair. He wished to be sure that Tarzanwas dead before he left, but it was not a part of his plan tobe one of those within the room when the murder occurred.

The woman still stood where she had when Tarzan entered,but her face had undergone a number of changes withthe few minutes which had elapsed. From the semblance ofdistress which it had worn when Tarzan first saw it, it hadchanged to one of craftiness as he had wheeled to meet theattack from behind; but the change Tarzan had not seen.

Later an expression of surprise and then one of horrorsuperseded the others. And who may wonder. For theimmaculate gentleman her cries had lured to what was to havebeen his death had been suddenly metamorphosed into ademon of revenge. Instead of soft muscles and a weakresistance, she was looking upon a veritable Hercules gone mad.

"MON DIEU!" she cried; "he is a beast!" For the strong,white teeth of the ape-man had found the throat of one ofhis assailants, and Tarzan fought as he had learned to fightwith the great bull apes of the tribe of Kerchak.

He was in a dozen places at once, leaping hither andthither about the room in sinuous bounds that remindedthe woman of a panther she had seen at the zoo. Now a wrist-bone snapped in his iron grip, now a shoulder was wrenchedfrom its socket as he forced a victim's arm backward and upward.

With shrieks of pain the men escaped into the hallway asquickly as they could; but even before the first one staggered,bleeding and broken, from the room, Rokoff had seen enoughto convince him that Tarzan would not be the one to liedead in that house this night, and so the Russian hadhastened to a nearby den and telephoned the police that aman was committing murder on the third floor of Rue Maule, 27.When the officers arrived they found three men groaningon the floor, a frightened woman lying upon a filthy bed, herface buried in her arms, and what appeared to be a well-dressed young gentleman standing in the center of the roomawaiting the reenforcements which he had thought the footstepsof the officers hurrying up the stairway had announced--but they were mistaken in the last; it was a wild beastthat looked upon them through those narrowed lids and steel-gray eyes. With the smell of blood the last vestige ofcivilization had deserted Tarzan, and now he stood at bay, like alion surrounded by hunters, awaiting the next overt act, andcrouching to charge its author.

"What has happened here?" asked one of the policemen.

Tarzan explained briefly, but when he turned to the womanfor confirmation of his statement he was appalled by her reply.

"He lies!" she screamed shrilly, addressing the policeman."He came to my room while I was alone, and for no goodpurpose. When I repulsed him he would have killed me hadnot my screams attracted these gentlemen, who were passingthe house at the time. He is a devil, monsieurs; alone he hasall but killed ten men with his bare hands and his teeth."

So shocked was Tarzan by her ingratitude that for a momenthe was struck dumb. The police were inclined to be a littleskeptical, for they had had other dealings with thissame lady and her lovely coterie of gentlemen friends.However, they were policemen, not judges, so they decided toplace all the inmates of the room under arrest, and let another,whose business it was, separate the innocent from the guilty.

But they found that it was one thing to tell this well-dressed young man that he was under arrest, but quiteanother to enforce it.

"I am guilty of no offense," he said quietly. "I have butsought to defend myself. I do not know why the woman hastold you what she has. She can have no enmity against me,for never until I came to this room in response to her criesfor help had I seen her."

"Come, come," said one of the officers; "there are judgesto listen to all that," and he advanced to lay his hand uponTarzan's shoulder. An instant later he lay crumpled in acorner of the room, and then, as his comrades rushed in uponthe ape-man, they experienced a taste of what the apacheshad but recently gone through. So quickly and so roughlydid he handle them that they had not even an opportunityto draw their revolvers.

During the brief fight Tarzan had noted the open windowand, beyond, the stem of a tree, or a telegraph pole--hecould not tell which. As the last officer went down, one ofhis fellows succeeded in drawing his revolver and, fromwhere he lay on the floor, fired at Tarzan. The shot missed,and before the man could fire again Tarzan had swept thelamp from the mantel and plunged the room into darkness.

The next they saw was a lithe form spring to the sill ofthe open window and leap, panther-like, onto the pole acrossthe walk. When the police gathered themselves together andreached the street their prisoner was nowhere to be seen.

They did not handle the woman and the men who hadnot escaped any too gently when they took them to thestation; they were a very sore and humiliated detail of police.It galled them to think that it would be necessary to reportthat a single unarmed man had wiped the floor with thewhole lot of them, and then escaped them as easily asthough they had not existed.

The officer who had remained in the street swore that noone had leaped from the window or left the building fromthe time they entered until they had come out. His comradesthought that he lied, but they could not prove it.

When Tarzan found himself clinging to the pole outside thewindow, he followed his jungle instinct and looked below forenemies before he ventured down. It was well he did, forjust beneath stood a policeman. Above, Tarzan saw no one,so he went up instead of down.

The top of the pole was opposite the roof of the building,so it was but the work of an instant for the muscles thathad for years sent him hurtling through the treetops of hisprimeval forest to carry him across the little space betweenthe pole and the roof. From one building he went to another,and so on, with much climbing, until at a cross street hediscovered another pole, down which he ran to the ground.

For a square or two he ran swiftly; then he turned into alittle all-night cafe and in the lavatory removed theevidences of his over-roof promenade from hands and clothes.When he emerged a few moments later it was to saunterslowly on toward his apartments.

Not far from them he came to a well-lighted boulevard whichit was necessary to cross. As he stood directly beneatha brilliant arc light, waiting for a limousine that wasapproaching to pass him, he heard his name called in a sweetfeminine voice. Looking up, he met the smiling eyes of Olga deCoude as she leaned forward upon the back seat of the machine.He bowed very low in response to her friendly greeting.When he straightened up the machine had borne her away.

"Rokoff and the Countess de Coude both in the sameevening," he soliloquized; "Paris is not so large, after all."