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Professor
Archimedes Q. Porter fidgeted in his armchair. The subject always made him
uncomfortable. He could not
understand why. Canler was a
splendid match.
"But
Jane," continued Canler, "I cannot understand her. She puts me
off first on one ground and then another.
I have always the feeling that she breathes a sigh of relief every
time I bid her good-by."
"Tut,
tut," said Professor Porter. "Tut,
tut, Mr. Canler. Jane is a most obedient daughter.
She will do precisely as I tell her."
"Then
I can still count on your support?" asked Canler, a tone of relief
marking his voice.
"Certainly,
sir; certainly, sir," exclaimed Professor Porter. "How could you
doubt it?"
"There
is young Clayton, you know," suggested Canler. "He has been
hanging about for months. I
don't know that Jane cares for him; but beside his title they say he has
inherited a very considerable estate from his father, and it might not be
strange,--if he finally won her, unless--" and Canler paused.
"Tut--tut,
Mr. Canler; unless--what?"
"Unless,
you see fit to request that Jane and I be married at once," said
Canler, slowly and distinctly.
"I
have already suggested to Jane that it would be desirable," said
Professor Porter sadly, "for we can no longer afford to keep up this
house, and live as her associations demand."
"What
was her reply?" asked Canler.
"She
said she was not ready to marry anyone yet," replied Professor
Porter, "and that we could go and live upon the farm in northern
Wisconsin which her mother left her.
"It
is a little more than self-supporting.
The tenants have always made a living from it, and been able to
send Jane a trifle beside, each year.
She is planning on our going up there the first of the week.
Philander and Mr. Clayton have already gone to get things in
readiness for us."
"Clayton
has gone there?" exclaimed Canler, visibly chagrined. "Why was I
not told? I would gladly have
gone and seen that every comfort was provided."
"Jane
feels that we are already too much in your debt, Mr. Canler," said
Professor Porter.
Canler
was about to reply, when the sound of footsteps came from the hall
without, and Jane entered the room.
"Oh,
I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed, pausing on the threshold.
"I thought you were alone, papa."
"It
is only I, Jane," said Canler, who had risen, "won't you come in
and join the family group? We
were just speaking of you."
"Thank
you," said Jane, entering and taking the chair Canler placed for her.
"I only wanted to tell papa that Tobey is coming down from the
college tomorrow to pack his books. I
want you to be sure, papa, to indicate all that you can do without until
fall. Please don't carry this
entire library to Wisconsin, as you would have carried it to Africa, if I
had not put my foot down."
"Was
Tobey here?" asked Professor Porter.
"Yes,
I just left him. He and
Esmeralda are exchanging religious experiences on the back porch
now."
"Tut,
tut, I must see him at once!" cried the professor. "Excuse me
just a moment, children," and the old man hastened from the room.
As
soon as he was out of earshot Canler turned to Jane.
"See
here, Jane," he said bluntly. "How
long is this thing going on like this?
You haven't refused to marry me, but you haven't promised either.
I want to get the license tomorrow, so that we can be married
quietly before you leave for Wisconsin. I don't care for any fuss or
feathers, and I'm sure you don't either."
The
girl turned cold, but she held her head bravely.
"Your
father wishes it, you know," added Canler.
"Yes,
I know."
She
spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"Do
you realize that you are buying me, Mr. Canler?" she said finally,
and in a cold, level voice. "Buying
me for a few paltry dollars? Of
course you do, Robert Canler, and the hope of just such a contingency was
in your mind when you loaned papa the money for that hair-brained
escapade, which but for a most mysterious circumstance would have been
surprisingly successful.
"But
you, Mr. Canler, would have been the most surprised. You had no idea that
the venture would succeed. You
are too good a businessman for that.
And you are too good a businessman to loan money for buried
treasure seeking, or to loan money without security--unless you had some
special object in view.
"You
knew that without security you had a greater hold on the honor of the
Porters than with it. You
knew the one best way to force me to marry you, without seeming to force
me.
"You
have never mentioned the loan. In
any other man I should have thought that the prompting of a magnanimous
and noble character. But you
are deep, Mr. Robert Canler. I
know you better than you think I know you.
"I
shall certainly marry you if there is no other way, but let us understand
each other once and for all."
While
she spoke Robert Canler had alternately flushed and paled, and when she
ceased speaking he arose, and with a cynical smile upon his strong face,
said:
"You
surprise me, Jane. I thought
you had more self-control --more pride.
Of course you are right. I
am buying you, and I knew that you knew it, but I thought you would prefer
to pretend that it was otherwise. I
should have thought your self respect and your Porter pride would have
shrunk from admitting, even to yourself, that you were a bought woman. But
have it your own way, dear girl," he added lightly.
"I am going to have you, and that is all that interests
me."
Without
a word the girl turned and left the room.
Jane
was not married before she left with her father and Esmeralda for her
little Wisconsin farm, and as she coldly bid Robert Canler goodby as her
train pulled out, he called to her that he would join them in a week or
two.
At
their destination they were met by Clayton and Mr. Philander in a huge
touring car belonging to the former, and quickly whirled away through the
dense northern woods toward the little farm which the girl had not visited
before since childhood.
The
farmhouse, which stood on a little elevation some hundred yards from the
tenant house, had undergone a complete transformation during the three
weeks that Clayton and Mr. Philander had been there.
The
former had imported a small army of carpenters and plasterers, plumbers
and painters from a distant city, and what had been but a dilapidated
shell when they reached it was now a cosy little two-story house filled
with every modern convenience procurable in so short a time.
"Why,
Mr. Clayton, what have you done?" cried Jane Porter, her heart
sinking within her as she realized the probable size of the expenditure
that had been made.
"S-sh,"
cautioned Clayton. "Don't
let your father guess. If you
don't tell him he will never notice, and I simply couldn't think of him
living in the terrible squalor and sordidness which Mr. Philander and I
found. It was so little when
I would like to do so much, Jane. For his sake, please, never mention it."
"But
you know that we can't repay you," cried the girl. "Why do you
want to put me under such terrible obligations?"
"Don't,
Jane," said Clayton sadly. "If
it had been just you, believe me, I wouldn't have done it, for I knew from
the start that it would only hurt me in your eyes, but I couldn't think of
that dear old man living in the hole we found here.
Won't you please believe that I did it just for him and give me
that little crumb of pleasure at least?"
"I
do believe you, Mr. Clayton," said the girl, "because I know you
are big enough and generous enough to have done it just for him--and, oh
Cecil, I wish I might repay you as you deserve--as you would wish."
"Why
can't you, Jane?"
"Because
I love another."
"Canler?"
"No."
"But
you are going to marry him. He
told me as much before I left Baltimore."
The
girl winced.
"I
do not love him," she said, almost proudly.
"Is
it because of the money, Jane?"
She
nodded.
"Then
am I so much less desirable than Canler?
I have money enough, and far more, for every need," he said
bitterly.
"I
do not love you, Cecil," she said, "but I respect you.
If I must disgrace myself by such a bargain with any man, I prefer
that it be one I already despise. I
should loathe the man to whom I sold myself without love, whomsoever he
might be. You will be
happier," she concluded, "alone--with my respect and friendship,
than with me and my contempt."
He
did not press the matter further, but if ever a man had murder in his
heart it was William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, when, a week later,
Robert Canler drew up before the farmhouse in his purring six cylinder.
A
week passed; a tense, uneventful, but uncomfortable week for all the
inmates of the little Wisconsin farmhouse.
Canler
was insistent that Jane marry him at once.
At
length she gave in from sheer loathing of the continued and hateful
importuning.
It
was agreed that on the morrow Canler was to drive to town and bring back
the license and a minister.
Clayton
had wanted to leave as soon as the plan was announced, but the girl's
tired, hopeless look kept him. He could not desert her.
Something
might happen yet, he tried to console himself by thinking.
And in his heart, he knew that it would require but a tiny spark to
turn his hatred for Canler into the blood lust of the killer.
Early
the next morning Canler set out for town.
In
the east smoke could be seen lying low over the forest, for a fire had
been raging for a week not far from them, but the wind still lay in the
west and no danger threatened them.
About
noon Jane started off for a walk. She
would not let Clayton accompany her.
She wanted to be alone, she said, and he respected her wishes.
In
the house Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were immersed in an absorbing
discussion of some weighty scientific problem. Esmeralda dozed in the
kitchen, and Clayton, heavy-eyed after a sleepless night, threw himself
down upon the couch in the living room and soon dropped into a fitful
slumber.
To
the east the black smoke clouds rose higher into the heavens, suddenly
they eddied, and then commenced to drift rapidly toward the west.
On
and on they came. The inmates
of the tenant house were gone, for it was market day, and none was there
to see the rapid approach of the fiery demon.
Soon
the flames had spanned the road to the south and cut off Canler's return.
A little fluctuation of the wind now carried the path of the forest
fire to the north, then blew back and the flames nearly stood still as
though held in leash by some master hand.
Suddenly,
out of the northeast, a great black car came careening down the road.
With
a jolt it stopped before the cottage, and a black-haired giant leaped out
to run up onto the porch. Without
a pause he rushed into the house. On
the couch lay Clayton. The man started in surprise, but with a bound was
at the side of the sleeping man.
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 startlingly 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 delerious!"
"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 the 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.
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