第41章

Ships That Pass Let us go back a few months to the little, windswept platform of a railway station in northern Wisconsin.

The smoke of forest fires hangs low over the surrounding landscape, its acrid fumes smarting the eyes of a little party of six who stand waiting the coming of the train that is to bear them away toward the south.

Professor Archimedes Q.Porter, his hands clasped beneath the tails of his long coat, paces back and forth under the ever-watchful eye of his faithful secretary, Mr.Samuel T.Philander.

Twice within the past few minutes he has started absent-mindedly across the tracks in the direction of a near-by swamp, only to be rescued and dragged back by the tireless Mr.Philander.

Jane Porter, the professor's daughter, is in strained and lifeless conversation with William Cecil Clayton and Tarzan of the Apes.Within the little waiting room, but a bare moment before, a confession of love and a renunciation had taken place that had blighted the lives and happiness of two of the party, but William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was not one of them.

Behind Miss Porter hovered the motherly Esmeralda.She, too, was happy, for was she not returning to her beloved Maryland?

Already she could see dimly through the fog of smoke the murky headlight of the oncoming engine.The men began to gather up the hand baggage.Suddenly Clayton exclaimed.

"By Jove! I've left my ulster in the waiting-room," and hastened off to fetch it.

"Good-bye, Jane," said Tarzan, extending his hand.

"God bless you!"

"Good-bye," replied the girl faintly."Try to forget me--no, not that--I could not bear to think that you had forgotten me.""There is no danger of that, dear," he answered."I wish to Heaven that I might forget.It would be so much easier than to go through life always remembering what might have been.

You will be happy, though; I am sure you shall--you must be.

You may tell the others of my decision to drive my car on to New York--I don't feel equal to bidding Clayton good-bye.

I want always to remember him kindly, but I fear that I am too much of a wild beast yet to be trusted too long with the man who stands between me and the one person in all the world I want."As Clayton stooped to pick up his coat in the waiting room his eyes fell on a telegraph blank lying face down upon the floor.He stooped to pick it up, thinking it might be a message of importance which some one had dropped.

He glanced at it hastily, and then suddenly he forgot his coat, the approaching train--everything but that terrible little piece of yellow paper in his hand.He read it twice before he could fully grasp the terrific weight of meaning that it bore to him.

When he had picked it up he had been an English nobleman, the proud and wealthy possessor of vast estates--a moment later he had read it, and he knew that he was an untitled and penniless beggar.It was D'Arnot's cablegram to Tarzan, and it read:

Finger prints prove you Greystoke.Congratulations.

D'ARNOT.

He staggered as though he had received a mortal blow.

Just then he heard the others calling to him to hurry--the train was coming to a stop at the little platform.

Like a man dazed he gathered up his ulster.He would tell them about the cablegram when they were all on board the train.

Then he ran out upon the platform just as the engine whistled twice in the final warning that precedes the first rumbling jerk of coupling pins.The others were on board, leaning out from the platform of a Pullman, crying to him to hurry.

Quite five minutes elapsed before they were settled in their seats, nor was it until then that Clayton discovered that Tarzan was not with them.

"Where is Tarzan?" he asked Jane Porter."In another car?""No," she replied; "at the last minute he determined to drive his machine back to New York.He is anxious to see more of America than is possible from a car window.He is returning to France, you know."Clayton did not reply.He was trying to find the right words to explain to Jane Porter the calamity that had befallen him --and her.He wondered just what the effect of his knowledge would be on her.Would she still wish to marry him--to be plain Mrs.Clayton? Suddenly the awful sacrifice which one of them must make loomed large before his imagination.

Then came the question: Will Tarzan claim his own? The ape-man had known the contents of the message before he calmly denied knowledge of his parentage! He had admitted that Kala, the ape, was his mother! Could it have been for love of Jane Porter?

There was no other explanation which seemed reasonable.

Then, having ignored the evidence of the message, was it not reasonable to assume that he meant never to claim his birthright?

If this were so, what right had he, William Cecil Clayton, to thwart the wishes, to balk the self-sacrifice of this strange man? If Tarzan of the Apes could do this thing to save Jane Porter from unhappiness, why should he, to whose care she was intrusting her whole future, do aught to jeopardize her interests?

And so he reasoned until the first generous impulse to proclaim the truth and relinquish his titles and his estates to their rightful owner was forgotten beneath the mass of sophistries which self-interest had advanced.But during the balance of the trip, and for many days thereafter, he was moody and distraught.Occasionally the thought obtruded itself that possibly at some later day Tarzan would regret his magnanimity, and claim his rights.

Several days after they reached Baltimore Clayton broached the subject of an early marriage to Jane.

"What do you mean by early?" she asked.