lly, "what the object
of Rokoff's persecution could be. It is very simple. The count is
intrusted with many of the vital secrets of the ministry of war. He
often has in his possession papers that foreign powers would give a
fortune to possess--secrets of state that their agents would commit
murder and worse than murder to learn.

"There is such a matter now in his possession that would make the fame
and fortune of any Russian who could divulge it to his government.
Rokoff and Paulvitch are Russian spies. They will stop at nothing to
procure this information. The affair on the liner--I mean the matter
of the card game--was for the purpose of blackmailing the knowledge
they seek from my husband.

"Had he been convicted of cheating at cards, his career would have been
blighted. He would have had to leave the war department. He would
have been socially ostracized. They intended to hold this club over
him--the price of an avowal on their part that the count was but the
victim of the plot of enemies who wished to besmirch his name was to
have been the papers they seek.

"You thwarted them in this. Then they concocted the scheme whereby my
reputation was to be the price, instead of the count's. When Paulvitch
entered my cabin he explained it to me. If I would obtain the
information for them he promised to go no farther, otherwise Rokoff,
who stood without, was to notify the purser that I was entertaining a
man other than my husband behind the locked doors of my cabin. He was
to tell every one he met on the boat, and when we landed he was to have
given the whole story to the newspaper men.

"Was it not too horrible? But I happened to know something of Monsieur
Paulvitch that would send him to the gallows in Russia if it were known
by the police of St. Petersburg. I dared him to carry out his plan,
and then I leaned toward him and whispered a name in his ear. Like
that"--and she snapped her fingers--"he flew at my throat as a madman.
He would have killed me had you not interfered."

"The brutes!" muttered Tarzan.

"They are worse than that, my friend," she said.

"They are devils. I fear for you because you have gained their hatred.
I wish you to be on your guard constantly. Tell me that you will, for
my sake, for I should never forgive myself should you suffer through
the kindness you did me."

"I do not fear them," he replied. "I have survived grimmer enemies
than Rokoff and Paulvitch." He saw that