rted that he had not found
you at the spot that you had chosen to remain while the detachment was
scouting, I was filled with alarm. We searched the mountain for days.
Then came word that you had been killed and eaten by a lion. As proof
your gun was brought to us. Your horse had returned to camp the second
day after your disappearance. We could not doubt. Lieutenant Gernois
was grief-stricken--he took all the blame upon himself. It was he who
insisted on carrying on the search himself. It was he who found the
Arab with your gun. He will be delighted to know that you are safe."

"Doubtless," said Tarzan, with a grim smile.

"He is down in the town now, or I should send for him," continued
Captain Gerard. "I shall tell him as soon as he returns."

Tarzan let the officer think that he had been lost, wandering finally
into the DOUAR of Kadour ben Saden, who had escorted him back to Bou
Saada. As soon as possible he bade the good officer adieu, and
hastened back into the town. At the native inn he had learned through
Kadour ben Saden a piece of interesting information. It told of a
black-bearded white man who went always disguised as an Arab. For a
time he had nursed a broken wrist. More recently he had been away from
Bou Saada, but now he was back, and Tarzan knew his place of
concealment. It was for there he headed.

Through narrow, stinking alleys, black as Erebus, he groped, and then
up a rickety stairway, at the end of which was a closed door and a
tiny, unglazed window. The window was high under the low eaves of the
mud building. Tarzan could just reach the sill. He raised himself
slowly until his eyes topped it. The room within was lighted, and at a
table sat Rokoff and Gernois. Gernois was speaking.

"Rokoff, you are a devil!" he was saying. "You have hounded me until I
have lost the last shred of my honor. You have driven me to murder,
for the blood of that man Tarzan is on my hands. If it were not that
that other devil's spawn, Paulvitch, still knew my secret, I should
kill you here tonight with my bare hands."

Rokoff laughed. "You would not do that, my dear lieutenant," he said.
"The moment I am reported dead by assassination that dear Alexis will
forward to the minister of war full proof of the affair you so ardently
long to conceal; and, further, will charge you with my murder. Come,
be sensible. I am your best friend. Have I not protected your honor
as though it were my own?"