A Duel D'Arnot was asleep when Tarzan entered their apartments after leaving Rokoff's.Tarzan did not disturb him, but the following morning he narrated the happenings of the previous evening, omitting not a single detail.
"What a fool I have been," he concluded."De Coude and his wife were both my friends.How have I returned their friendship? Barely did I escape murdering the count.I have cast a stigma on the name of a good woman.It is very probable that I have broken up a happy home.""Do you love Olga de Coude?" asked D'Arnot.
"Were I not positive that she does not love me I could not answer your question, Paul; but without disloyalty to her Itell you that I do not love her, nor does she love me.For an instant we were the victims of a sudden madness--it was not love--and it would have left us, unharmed, as suddenly as it had come upon us even though De Coude had not returned.
As you know, I have had little experience of women.Olga de Coude is very beautiful; that, and the dim light and the seductive surroundings, and the appeal of the defenseless for protection, might have been resisted by a more civilized man, but my civilization is not even skin deep--it does not go deeper than my clothes.
"Paris is no place for me.I will but continue to stumble into more and more serious pitfalls.The man-made restrictions are irksome.I feel always that I am a prisoner.
I cannot endure it, my friend, and so I think that I shall go back to my own jungle, and lead the life that God intended that I should lead when He put me there.""Do not take it so to heart, Jean," responded D'Arnot.
"You have acquitted yourself much better than most `civilized' men would have under similar circumstances.
As to leaving Paris at this time, I rather think that Raoul de Coude may be expected to have something to say on that subject before long."Nor was D'Arnot mistaken.A week later on Monsieur Flaubert was announced about eleven in the morning, as D'Arnot and Tarzan were breakfasting.Monsieur Flaubert was an impressively polite gentleman.With many low bows he delivered Monsieur le Count de Coude's challenge to Monsieur Tarzan.
Would monsieur be so very kind as to arrange to have a friend meet Monsieur Flaubert at as early an hour as convenient, that the details might be arranged to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned?
Certainly.Monsieur Tarzan would be delighted to place his interests unreservedly in the hands of his friend, Lieutenant D'Arnot.And so it was arranged that D'Arnot was to call on Monsieur Flaubert at two that afternoon, and the polite Monsieur Flaubert, with many bows, left them.
When they were again alone D'Arnot looked quizzically at Tarzan.
"Well?" he said.
"Now to my sins I must add murder, or else myself be killed,"said Tarzan."I am progressing rapidly in the ways of my civilized brothers.""What weapons shall you select?" asked D'Arnot.
"De Coude is accredited with being a master with the sword, and a splendid shot."1
"Make it pistols, Paul."
"He will kill you, Jean."
"I have no doubt of it," replied Tarzan."I must die some day.""We had better make it swords," said D'Arnot."He will be satisfied with wounding you, and there is less danger of a mortal wound.""Pistols," said Tarzan, with finality.
D'Arnot tried to argue him out of it, but without avail, so pistols it was.
D'Arnot returned from his conference with Monsieur Flaubert shortly after four.
"It is all arranged," he said."Everything is satisfactory.
Tomorrow morning at daylight--there is a secluded spot on the road not far from Etamps.For some personal reason Monsieur Flaubert preferred it.I did not demur.""Good!" was Tarzan's only comment.He did not refer to the matter again even indirectly.That night he wrote several letters before he retired.After sealing and addressing them he placed them all in an envelope addressed to D'Arnot.
As he undressed D'Arnot heard him humming a music-hall ditty.
The Frenchman swore under his breath.He was very unhappy, for he was positive that when the sun rose the next morning it would look down upon a dead Tarzan.It grated upon him to see Tarzan so unconcerned.
"This is a most uncivilized hour for people to kill each other," remarked the ape-man when he had been routed out of a comfortable bed in the blackness of the early morning hours.
He had slept well, and so it seemed that his head scarcely touched the pillow ere his man deferentially aroused him.
His remark was addressed to D'Arnot, who stood fully dressed in the doorway of Tarzan's bedroom.
D'Arnot had scarcely slept at all during the night.He was nervous, and therefore inclined to be irritable.
"I presume you slept like a baby all night," he said.
Tarzan laughed."From your tone, Paul, I infer that you rather harbor the fact against me.I could not help it, really.""No, Jean; it is not that," replied D'Arnot, himself smiling."But you take the entire matter with such infernal indifference--it is exasperating.One would think that you were going out to shoot at a target, rather than to face one of the best shots in France."Tarzan shrugged his shoulders."I am going out to expiate a great wrong, Paul.A very necessary feature of the expiation is the marksmanship of my opponent.Wherefore, then, should I be dissatisfied? Have you not yourself told me that Count de Coude is a splendid marksman?""You mean that you hope to be killed?" exclaimed D'Arnot, in horror.
"I cannot say that I hope to be; but you must admit that there is little reason to believe that I shall not be killed."Had D'Arnot known the thing that was in the ape-man's mind--that had been in his mind almost from the first intimation that De Coude would call him to account on the field of honor--he would have been even more horrified than he was.
In silence they entered D'Arnot's great car, and in similar silence they sped over the dim road that leads to Etamps.Each man was occupied with his own thoughts.
