When Busuli had brought the water Tarzan forced a few drops between the
cracked and swollen lips. He wetted the hot forehead and bathed the
pitiful limbs.

Presently Clayton opened his eyes. A faint, shadowy smile lighted his
countenance as he saw the girl leaning over him. At sight of Tarzan
the expression changed to one of wonderment.

"It's all right, old fellow," said the ape-man. "We've found you in
time. Everything will be all right now, and we'll have you on your
feet again before you know it."

The Englishman shook his head weakly. "It's too late," he whispered.
"But it's just as well. I'd rather die."

"Where is Monsieur Thuran?" asked the girl.

"He left me after the fever got bad. He is a devil. When I begged for
the water that I was too weak to get he drank before me, threw the rest
out, and laughed in my face." At the thought of it the man was suddenly
animated by a spark of vitality. He raised himself upon one elbow.
"Yes," he almost shouted; "I will live. I will live long enough to
find and kill that beast!" But the brief effort left him weaker than
before, and he sank back again upon the rotting grasses that, with his
old ulster, had been the bed of Jane Porter.

"Don't worry about Thuran," said Tarzan of the Apes, laying a
reassuring hand on Clayton's forehead. "He belongs to me, and I shall
get him in the end, never fear."

For a long time Clayton lay very still. Several times Tarzan had to
put his ear quite close to the sunken chest to catch the faint beating
of the worn-out heart. Toward evening he aroused again for a brief
moment.

"Jane," he whispered. The girl bent her head closer to catch the faint
message. "I have wronged you--and him," he nodded weakly toward the
ape-man. "I loved you so--it is a poor excuse to offer for injuring
you; but I could not bear to think of giving you up. I do not ask your
forgiveness. I only wish to do now the thing I should have done over a
year ago." He fumbled in the pocket of the ulster beneath him for
something that he had discovered there while he lay between the
paroxysms of fever. Presently he found it--a crumpled bit of yellow
paper. He handed it to the girl, and as she took it his arm fell
limply across his chest, his head dropped back, and with a little gasp
he stiffened and was still. Then Tarzan of the Apes drew a fold of the
ulster across the upturned face.

For a moment they remained kneeling there, the girl's lips mov