The Return of Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs (read e book TXT) 📗

antagonist was coolly taking these terrible chances in the hope that he would receive no staggering wound from any of De Coude’s three shots. Then he would take his own time about shooting De Coude down deliberately, coolly, and in cold blood. A little shiver ran up the Frenchman’s spine. It was fiendish⁠—diabolical. What manner of creature was this that could stand complacently with two bullets in him, waiting for the third?

And so De Coude took careful aim this time, but his nerve was gone, and he made a clean miss. Not once had Tarzan raised his pistol hand from where it hung beside his leg.

For a moment the two stood looking straight into each other’s eyes. On Tarzan’s face was a pathetic expression of disappointment. On De Coude’s a rapidly growing expression of horror⁠—yes, of terror.

He could endure it no longer.

“Mother of God! Monsieur⁠—shoot!” he screamed.

But Tarzan did not raise his pistol. Instead, he advanced toward De Coude, and when D’Arnot and Monsieur Flaubert, misinterpreting his intention, would have rushed between them, he raised his left hand in a sign of remonstrance.

“Do not fear,” he said to them, “I shall not harm him.”

It was most unusual, but they halted. Tarzan advanced until he was quite close to De Coude.

“There must have been something wrong with monsieur’s pistol,” he said. “Or monsieur is unstrung. Take mine, monsieur, and try again,” and Tarzan offered his pistol, butt foremost, to the astonished De Coude.

“Mon Dieu, monsieur!” cried the latter. “Are you mad?”

“No, my friend,” replied the ape-man; “but I deserve to die. It is the only way in which I may atone for the wrong I have done a very good woman. Take my pistol and do as I bid.”

“It would be murder,” replied De Coude. “But what wrong did you do my wife? She swore to me that⁠—”

“I do not mean that,” said Tarzan quickly. “You saw all the wrong that passed between us. But that was enough to cast a shadow upon her name, and to ruin the happiness of a man against whom I had no enmity. The fault was all mine, and so I hoped to die for it this morning. I am disappointed that monsieur is not so wonderful a marksman as I had been led to believe.”

“You say that the fault was all yours?” asked De Coude eagerly.

“All mine, monsieur. Your wife is a very pure woman. She loves only you. The fault that you saw was all mine. The thing that brought me there was no fault of either the Countess de Coude or myself. Here is a paper which will quite positively demonstrate that,” and Tarzan drew from his pocket the statement Rokoff had written and signed.

De Coude took it and read. D’Arnot and Monsieur Flaubert had drawn near. They were interested spectators of this strange ending of a strange duel. None spoke until De Coude had quite finished, then he looked up at Tarzan.

“You are a very brave and chivalrous gentleman,” he said. “I thank God that I did not kill you.”

De Coude was a Frenchman. Frenchmen are impulsive. He threw his arms about Tarzan and embraced him. Monsieur Flaubert embraced D’Arnot. There was no one to embrace the doctor. So possibly it was pique which prompted him to interfere, and demand that he be permitted to dress Tarzan’s wounds.

“This gentleman was hit once at least,” he said. “Possibly thrice.”

“Twice,” said Tarzan. “Once in the left shoulder, and again in the left side⁠—both flesh wounds, I think.” But the doctor insisted upon stretching him upon the sward, and tinkering with him until the wounds were cleansed and the flow of blood checked.

One result of the duel was that they all rode back to Paris together in D’Arnot’s car, the best of friends. De Coude was so relieved to have had this double assurance of his wife’s loyalty that he felt no rancor at all toward Tarzan. It is true that the latter had assumed much more of the fault than was rightly his, but if he lied a little he may be excused, for he lied in the service of a woman, and he lied like a gentleman.

The ape-man was confined to his bed for several days. He felt that it was foolish and unnecessary, but the doctor and D’Arnot took the matter so to heart that he gave in to please them, though it made him laugh to think of it.

“It is droll,” he said to D’Arnot. “To lie abed because of a pin prick! Why, when Bolgani, the king gorilla, tore me almost to pieces, while I was still but a little boy, did I have a nice soft bed to lie on? No, only the damp, rotting vegetation of the jungle. Hidden beneath some friendly bush I lay for days and weeks with only Kala to nurse me⁠—poor, faithful Kala, who kept the insects from my wounds and warned off the beasts of prey.

“When I called for water she brought it to me in her own mouth⁠—the only way she knew to carry it. There was no sterilized gauze, there was no antiseptic bandage⁠—there was nothing that would not have driven our dear doctor mad to have seen. Yet I recovered⁠—recovered to lie in bed because of a tiny scratch that one of the jungle folk would scarce realize unless it were upon the end of his nose.”

But the time was soon over, and before he realized it Tarzan found himself abroad again. Several times De Coude had called, and when he found that Tarzan was anxious for employment of some nature he promised to see what could be done to find a berth for him.

It was the first day that Tarzan was permitted to go out that he received a message from De Coude requesting him to call at the count’s office that afternoon.

He found De Coude awaiting him with a very pleasant welcome, and a sincere congratulation that he was once more upon his feet. Neither