Return of Tarzan, The The. Edgar Rice Burroughs

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СКАЧАТЬ line. Her maid answered the telephone which was in the countess' boudoir.

      "But madame has retired," said the maid, in answer to Rokoff's request to speak with her.

      "This is a very urgent message for the countess' ears alone," replied Rokoff. "Tell her that she must arise and slip something about her and come to the telephone. I shall call up again in five minutes." Then he hung up his receiver. A moment later Paulvitch entered.

      "The count has the message?" asked Rokoff.

      "He should be on his way to his home by now," replied Paulvitch.

      "Good! My lady will be sitting in her boudoir, very much in negligee, about now. In a minute the faithful Jacques will escort Monsieur Tarzan into her presence without announcing him. It will take a few minutes for explanations. Olga will look very alluring in the filmy creation that is her night-dress, and the clinging robe which but half conceals the charms that the former does not conceal at all. Olga will be surprised, but not displeased.

      "If there is a drop of red blood in the man the count will break in upon a very pretty love scene in about fifteen minutes from now. I think we have planned marvelously, my dear Alexis. Let us go out and drink to the very good health of Monsieur Tarzan in some of old Plancon's unparalleled absinth; not forgetting that the Count de Coude is one of the best swordsmen in Paris, and by far the best shot in all France."

      When Tarzan reached Olga's, Jacques was awaiting him at the entrance.

      "This way, Monsieur," he said, and led the way up the broad, marble staircase. In another moment he had opened a door, and, drawing aside a heavy curtain, obsequiously bowed Tarzan into a dimly lighted apartment. Then Jacques vanished.

      Across the room from him Tarzan saw Olga seated before a little desk on which stood her telephone. She was tapping impatiently upon the polished surface of the desk. She had not heard him enter.

      "Olga," he said, "what is wrong?"

      She turned toward him with a little cry of alarm.

      "Jean!" she cried. "What are you doing here? Who admitted you? What does it mean?"

      Tarzan was thunderstruck, but in an instant he realized a part of the truth.

      "Then you did not send for me, Olga?"

      "Send for you at this time of night? MON DIEU! Jean, do you think that I am quite mad?"

      "Francois telephoned me to come at once; that you were in trouble and wanted me."

      "Francois? Who in the world is Francois?"

      "He said that he was in your service. He spoke as though I should recall the fact."

      "There is no one by that name in my employ. Some one has played a joke upon you, Jean," and Olga laughed.

      "I fear that it may be a most sinister `joke,' Olga," he replied. "There is more back of it than humor."

      "What do you mean? You do not think that--"

      "Where is the count?" he interrupted.

      "At the German ambassador's."

      "This is another move by your estimable brother. Tomorrow the count will hear of it. He will question the servants. Everything will point to--to what Rokoff wishes the count to think."

      "The scoundrel!" cried Olga. She had arisen, and come close to Tarzan, where she stood looking up into his face. She was very frightened. In her eyes was an expression that the hunter sees in those of a poor, terrified doe--puzzled--questioning. She trembled, and to steady herself raised her hands to his broad shoulders. "What shall we do, Jean?" she whispered. "It is terrible. Tomorrow all Paris will read of it--he will see to that."

      Her look, her attitude, her words were eloquent of the age-old appeal of defenseless woman to her natural protector--man. Tarzan took one of the warm little hands that lay on his breast in his own strong one. The act was quite involuntary, and almost equally so was the instinct of protection that threw a sheltering arm around the girl's shoulders.

      The result was electrical. Never before had he been so close to her. In startled guilt they looked suddenly into each other's eyes, and where Olga de Coude should have been strong she was weak, for she crept closer into the man's arms, and clasped her own about his neck. And Tarzan of the Apes? He took the panting figure into his mighty arms, and covered the hot lips with kisses.

      Raoul de Coude made hurried excuses to his host after he had read the note handed him by the ambassador's butler. Never afterward could he recall the nature of the excuses he made. Everything was quite a blur to him up to the time that he stood on the threshold of his own home. Then he became very cool, moving quietly and with caution. For some inexplicable reason Jacques had the door open before he was halfway to the steps. It did not strike him at the time as being unusual, though afterward he remarked it.

      Very softly he tiptoed up the stairs and along the gallery to the door of his wife's boudoir. In his hand was a heavy walking stick--in his heart, murder.

      Olga was the first to see him. With a horrified shriek she tore herself from Tarzan's arms, and the ape-man turned just in time to ward with his arm a terrific blow that De Coude had aimed at his head. Once, twice, three times the heavy stick fell with lightning rapidity, and each blow aided in the transition of the ape-man back to the primordial.

      With the low, guttural snarl of the bull ape he sprang for the Frenchman. The great stick was torn from his grasp and broken in two as though it had been matchwood, to be flung aside as the now infuriated beast charged for his adversary's throat. Olga de Coude stood a horrified spectator of the terrible scene which ensued during the next brief moment, then she sprang to where Tarzan was murdering her husband--choking the life from him--shaking him as a terrier might shake a rat.

      Frantically she tore at his great hands. "Mother of God!" she cried. "You are killing him, you are killing him! Oh, Jean, you are killing my husband!"

      Tarzan was deaf with rage. Suddenly he hurled the body to the floor, and, placing his foot upon the upturned breast, raised his head. Then through the palace of the Count de Coude rang the awesome challenge of the bull ape that has made a kill. From cellar to attic the horrid sound searched out the servants, and left them blanched and trembling. The woman in the room sank to her knees beside the body of her husband, and prayed.

      Slowly the red mist faded from before Tarzan's eyes. Things began to take form--he was regaining the perspective of civilized man. His eyes fell upon the figure of the kneeling woman. "Olga," he whispered. She looked up, expecting to see the maniacal light of murder in the eyes above her. Instead she saw sorrow and contrition.

      "Oh, Jean!" she cried. "See what you have done. He was my husband. I loved him, and you have killed him."

      Very gently Tarzan raised the limp form of the Count de Coude and bore it to a couch. Then he put his ear to the man's breast.

      "Some brandy, Olga," he said.

      She brought it, and together they forced it between his lips. Presently a faint gasp came from the white lips. The head turned, and De Coude groaned.

      "He will not die," said Tarzan. "Thank God!"

      "Why did you do it, Jean?" she asked.

      "I do СКАЧАТЬ