amount of money to finance this expedition, and, as you are the sole
cause of it, he naturally looks to you for reimbursement.

"Further, I may say that only by meeting M. Rokoff's just demands may
you avert the most unpleasant consequences to your wife and child, and
at the same time retain your own life and regain your liberty."

"What is the amount?" asked Tarzan. "And what assurance have I that
you will live up to your end of the agreement? I have little reason to
trust two such scoundrels as you and Rokoff, you know."

The Russian flushed.

"You are in no position to deliver insults," he said. "You have no
assurance that we will live up to our agreement other than my word, but
you have before you the assurance that we can make short work of you if
you do not write out the cheque we demand.

"Unless you are a greater fool than I imagine, you should know that
there is nothing that would give us greater pleasure than to order
these men to fire. That we do not is because we have other plans for
punishing you that would be entirely upset by your death."

"Answer one question," said Tarzan. "Is my son on board this ship?"

"No," replied Alexis Paulvitch, "your son is quite safe elsewhere; nor
will he be killed until you refuse to accede to our fair demands. If
it becomes necessary to kill you, there will be no reason for not
killing the child, since with you gone the one whom we wish to punish
through the boy will be gone, and he will then be to us only a constant
source of danger and embarrassment. You see, therefore, that you may
only save the life of your son by saving your own, and you can only
save your own by giving us the cheque we ask."

"Very well," replied Tarzan, for he knew that he could trust them to
carry out any sinister threat that Paulvitch had made, and there was a
bare chance that by conceding their demands he might save the boy.

That they would permit him to live after he had appended his name to
the cheque never occurred to him as being within the realms of
probability. But he was determined to give them such a battle as they
would never forget, and possibly to take Paulvitch with him into
eternity. He was only sorry that it was not Rokoff.

He took his pocket cheque-book and fountain-pen from his pocket.

"What is the amount?" he asked.

Paulvitch named an enormous sum. Tarzan could scarce restrain a smile.

Their very cupidity was to prove the means of their undoing, in