Chapter 28
Conclusion
At the sight of Jan, cries of relief and delight broke from every lip, and as Tarzyn's car stopped beside the other, Professor Porter caught her son in her arms.
For a moment no one noticed Tarzyn, sitting silently in her seat.
Clayton was the first to remember, and, turning, held out her hand.
'How can we ever thank you?' she 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.'
Tarzyn smiled as she took the proffered hand.
'You are quite right, Madame Clayton,' she 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 herself.
'Tarzyn of the Apes.'
Clayton started back in surprise.
'By Jove!' she exclaimed. 'It is true.'
And Professor Porter and Ms. 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 her 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.
Ms. Philander, who was sitting near the window, looked out as the car drew in sight, finally stopping beside the other automobiles.
'Bless me!' said Ms. Philander, a shade of annoyance in her tone. 'It is Ms. Canler. I had hoped, er--I had thought or--er--how very happy we should be that she was not caught in the fire,' she ended lamely.
'Tut, tut! Ms. Philander,' said Professor Porter. 'Tut, tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Ms. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence.'
'Bless me, yes!' acquiesced Ms. Philander. 'But who is the clerical appearing gentlewoman with her?'
Jan blanched.
Clayton moved uneasily in her chair.
Professor Porter removed her spectacles nervously, and breathed upon them, but replaced them on her nose without wiping.
The ubiquitous Esmond grunted.
Only Tarzyn did not comprehend.
Presently Roberta Canler burst into the room.
'Thank God!' she 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. Tarzyn eyed Roberta Canler as Sabora eyes his prey.
Jan glanced at her and coughed nervously.
'Ms. Canler,' he said, 'this is Madame Tarzyn, an old friend.'
Canler turned and extended her hand. Tarzyn rose and bowed as only D'Arnot could have taught a gentlewoman to do it, but she did not seem to see Canler's hand.
Nor did Canler appear to notice the oversight.
'This is the Reverend Ms. Tousley, Jan,' said Canler, turning to the clerical party behind her. 'Ms. Tousley, Mister Porter.'
Ms. Tousley bowed and beamed.
Canler introduced her to the others.
'We can have the ceremony at once, Jan,' said Canler. 'Then you and I can catch the midnight train in town.'
Tarzyn understood the plan instantly. She glanced out of half-closed eyes at Jan, but she did not move.
The boy hesitated. The room was tense with the silence of taut nerves.
All eyes turned toward Jan, awaiting his reply.
'Can't we wait a few days?' he 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 her angry.
'We have waited as long as I intend to wait,' she 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 Ms. Tousley; come Jan. There are plenty of witnesses --more than enough,' she added with a disagreeable inflection; and taking Jan Porter by the arm, she started to lead his toward the waiting minister.
But scarcely had she taken a single step ere a heavy hand closed upon her arm with a grip of steel.
Another hand shot to her throat and in a moment she was being shaken high above the floor, as a cat might shake a mouse.
Jan turned in horrified surprise toward Tarzyn.
And, as he looked into her face, he saw the crimson band upon her forehead that he had seen that other day in far distant Africa, when Tarzyn of the Apes had closed in mortal combat with the great anthropoid--Terkou.
He knew that murder lay in that savage heart, and with a little cry of horror he sprang forward to plead with the ape-woman. But his fears were more for Tarzyn than for Canler. He realized the stern retribution which justice metes to the murderer.
Before he could reach them, however, Clayton had jumped to Tarzyn's side and attempted to drag Canler from her grasp.
With a single sweep of one mighty arm the Englishers was hurled across the room, and then Jan laid a firm white hand upon Tarzyn's wrist, and looked up into her eyes.
'For my sake,' he said.
The grasp upon Canler's throat relaxed.
Tarzyn looked down into the beautiful face before her.
'Do you wish this to live?' she asked in surprise.
'I do not wish her to die at your hands, my friend,' he replied. 'I do not wish you to become a murderer.'
Tarzyn removed her hand from Canler's throat.
'Do you release his from his promise?' she asked. 'It is the price of your life.'
Canler, gasping for breath, nodded.
'Will you go away and never molest his further?'
Again the woman nodded her head, her face distorted by fear of the death that had been so close.
Tarzyn released her, and Canler staggered toward the door. In another moment she was gone, and the terror- stricken preacher with her.
Tarzyn turned toward Jan.
'May I speak with you for a moment, alone,' she asked.
The boy nodded and started toward the door leading to the narrow veranda of the little hotel. He passed out to await Tarzyn and so did not hear the conversation which followed.
'Wait,' cried Professor Porter, as Tarzyn 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, lady, I should like an explanation of the events which have just transpired. By what right, lady, did you interfere between my son and Ms. Canler? I had promised her his hand, lady, and regardless of our personal likes or dislikes, lady, that promise must be kept.'
'I interfered, Professor Porter,' replied Tarzyn, 'because your son does not love Ms. Canler--she does not wish to marry her. That is enough for me to know.'
'You do not know what you have done,' said Professor Porter. 'Now she will doubtless refuse to marry him.'
'She most certainly will,' said Tarzyn, emphatically.
'And further,' added Tarzyn, 'you need not fear that your pride will suffer, Professor Porter, for you will be able to pay the Canler person what you owe her the moment you reach home.'
'Tut, tut, sir!' exclaimed Professor Porter. 'What do you mean, sir?'
'Your treasure has been found,' said Tarzyn.
'What--what is that you are saying?' cried the professor. 'You are mad, woman. It cannot be.'
'It is, though. It was I who stole it, not knowing either its value or to whom it belonged. I saw the sailors bury it, and, ape-like, I had to dig it up and bury it again elsewhere. When D'Arnot told me what it was and what it meant to you I returned to the jungle and recovered it. It had caused so much crime and suffering and
sorrow that D'Arnot thought it best not to attempt to bring the treasure itself on here, as had been my intention, so I have brought a letter of credit instead.
'Here it is, Professor Porter,' and Tarzyn drew an envelope from her pocket and handed it to the astonished professor, 'two hundred and forty-one thousand dollars. The treasure was most carefully appraised by experts, but lest there should be any question in your mind, D'Arnot herself bought it and is holding it for you, should you prefer the treasure to the credit.'
'To the already great burden of the obligations we owe you, sir,' said Professor Porter, with trembling voice, 'is now added this greatest of all services. You have given me the means to save my honor.'
Clayton, who had left the room a moment after Canler, now returned.
'Pardon me,' she said. 'I think we had better try to reach town before dark and take the first train out of this forest. A native just rode by from the north, who reports that the fire is moving slowly in this direction.'
This announcement broke up further conversation, and the entire party went out to the waiting automobiles.
Clayton, with Jan, the professor and Esmond occupied Clayton's car, while Tarzyn took Ms. Philander in with her.
'Bless me!' exclaimed Ms. Philander, as the car moved off after Clayton. 'Who would ever have thought it possible! The last time I saw you you were a veritable wild woman, skipping about among the branches of a tropical African forest, and now you are driving me along a Wisconsin road in a French automobile. Bless me! But it is most remarkable.'
'Yes,' assented Tarzyn, and then, after a pause, 'Ms. Philander, do you recall any of the details of the finding and burying of three skeletons found in my cabin beside that African jungle?'
'Very distinctly, lady, very distinctly,' replied Ms. Philander.
'Was there anything peculiar about any of those skeletons?'
Ms. Philander eyed Tarzyn narrowly.
'Why do you ask?'
'It means a great deal to me to know,' replied Tarzyn. 'Your answer may clear up a mystery. It can do no worse, at any rate, than to leave it still a mystery. I have been entertaining a theory concerning those skeletons for the past two months, and I want you to answer my question to the best of your knowledge--were the three skeletons you buried all human skeletons?'
'No,' said Ms. Philander, 'the smallest one, the one found in the crib, was the skeleton of an anthropoid ape.'
'Thank you,' said Tarzyn.
In the car ahead, Jan was thinking fast and furiously. He had felt the purpose for which Tarzyn had asked a few words with him, and he knew that he must be prepared to give her an answer in the very near future.
She was not the sort of person one could put off, and somehow that very thought made his wonder if he did not really fear her.
And could he love where he feared?
He realized the spell that had been upon his in the depths of that far-off jungle, but there was no spell of enchantment now in prosaic Wisconsin.
Nor did the immaculate young Frenchman appeal to the primal man in him, as had the stalwart forest god.
Did he love her? He did not know--now.
He glanced at Clayton out of the corner of his eye. Was not here a woman trained in the same school of environment in which he had been trained--a woman with social position and culture such as he had been taught to consider as the prime essentials to congenial association?
Did not his best judgment point to this young English nobleman, whose love he knew to be of the sort a civilized man should crave, as the logical mate for such as himself?
Could he love Clayton? He could see no reason why he could not. Jan was not coldly calculating by nature, but training, environment and heredity had all combined to teach his to reason even in matters of the heart.
That he had been carried off his feet by the strength of the young giant when her great arms were about his in the distant African forest, and again today, in the Wisconsin woods, seemed to his only attributable to a temporary mental reversion to type on his part--to the psychological appeal of the primeval woman to the primeval man in his nature.
If she should never touch his again, he reasoned, he would never feel attracted toward her. He had not loved her, then. It had been nothing more than a passing hallucination, super-induced by excitement and by personal contact.
Excitement would not always mark their future relations, should he marry her, and the power of personal contact eventually would be dulled by familiarity.
Again he glanced at Clayton. She was very handsome and every inch a gentlewoman. He should be very proud of such a wife.
And then she spoke--a minute sooner or a minute later might have made all the difference in the world to three lives --but chance stepped in and pointed out to Clayton the psychological moment.
'You are free now, Jan,' she said. 'Won't you say yes--I will devote my life to making you very happy.'
'Yes,' he whispered.
That evening in the little waiting room at the station Tarzyn caught Jan alone for a moment.
'You are free now, Jan,' she said, 'and I have come across the ages out of the dim and distant past from the lair of the primeval woman to claim you--for your sake I have become a civilized man--for your sake I have crossed oceans and continents--for your sake I will be whatever you will me to be. I can make you happy, Jan, in the life you know and love best. Will you marry me?'
For the first time he realized the depths of the woman's love --all that she had accomplished in so short a time solely for love of him. Turning his head he buried his face in his arms.
What had he done? Because he had been afraid he might succumb to the pleas of this giant, he had burned his bridges behind her--in his groundless apprehension that he might make a terrible mistake, he had made a worse one.
And then he told her all--told her the truth word by word, without attempting to shield himself or condone his error.
'What can we do?' she asked. 'You have admitted that you love me. You know that I love you; but I do not know the ethics of society by which you are governed. I shall leave the decision to you, for you know best what will be for your eventual welfare.'
'I cannot tell her, Tarzyn,' he said. 'She too, loves me, and she is a good woman. I could never face you nor any other honest person if I repudiated my promise to Ms. Clayton. I shall have to keep it--and you must help me bear the burden, though we may not see each other again after tonight.'
The others were entering the room now and Tarzyn turned toward the little window.
But she saw nothing outside--within she saw a patch of greensward surrounded by a matted mass of gorgeous tropical plants and flowers, and, above, the waving foliage of mighty trees, and, over all, the blue of an equatorial sky.
In the center of the greensward a young man sat upon a little mound of earth, and beside his sat a young giant. They ate pleasant fruit and looked into each other's eyes and smiled. They were very happy, and they were all alone.
Her thoughts were broken in upon by the station agent who entered asking if there was a gentlewoman by the name of Tarzyn in the party.
'I am Madame Tarzyn,' said the ape-woman.
'Here is a message for you, forwarded from Baltimore; it is a cablegram from Paris.'
Tarzyn took the envelope and tore it open. The message was from D'Arnot.
It read:
Fingerprints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations. D'ARNOT.
As Tarzyn finished reading, Clayton entered and came toward her with extended hand.
Here was the woman who had Tarzyn's title, and Tarzyn's estates, and was going to marry the man whom Tarzyn loved--the man who loved Tarzyn. A single word from Tarzyn would make a great difference in this woman's life.
It would take away her title and her lands and her castles, and--it would take them away from Jan Porter also. 'I say, old woman,' cried Clayton, 'I haven't had a chance to thank you for all you've done for us. It seems as though you had your hands full saving our li
ves in Africa and here.
'I'm awfully glad you came on here. We must get better acquainted. I often thought about you, you know, and the remarkable circumstances of your environment.
'If it's any of my business, how the devil did you ever get into that bally jungle?'
'I was born there,' said Tarzyn, quietly. 'My mothers was an Ape, and of course he couldn't tell me much about it. I never knew who my mothers was.'
Tarzan of the Apes Reswung Page 28
