to blacken about
the face Tarzan released his hold and shoved the fellow back into his
chair. After a moment of coughing Rokoff sat sullenly glaring at the
man standing opposite him. Presently Paulvitch came to himself, and
limped painfully back to his chair at Tarzan's command.

"Now write," said the ape-man. "If it is necessary to handle you again
I shall not be so lenient."

Rokoff picked up a pen and commenced to write.

"See that you omit no detail, and that you mention every name,"
cautioned Tarzan.

Presently there was a knock at the door. "Enter," said Tarzan.

A dapper young man came in. "I am from the MATIN," he announced. "I
understand that Monsieur Rokoff has a story for me."

"Then you are mistaken, monsieur," replied Tarzan. "You have no story
for publication, have you, my dear Nikolas."

Rokoff looked up from his writing with an ugly scowl upon his face.

"No," he growled, "I have no story for publication--now."

"Nor ever, my dear Nikolas," and the reporter did not see the nasty
light in the ape-man's eye; but Nikolas Rokoff did.

"Nor ever," he repeated hastily.

"It is too bad that monsieur has been troubled," said Tarzan, turning
to the newspaper man. "I bid monsieur good evening," and he bowed the
dapper young man out of the room, and closed the door in his face.

An hour later Tarzan, with a rather bulky manuscript in his coat
pocket, turned at the door leading from Rokoff's room.

"Were I you I should leave France," he said, "for sooner or later I
shall find an excuse to kill you that will not in any way compromise
your sister."

Chapter 6

A Duel

D'Arnot was asleep when Tarzan entered their apartments after leaving
Rokoff's. Tarzan did not disturb him, but the following morning he
narrated the happenings of the previous evening, omitting not a single
detail.

"What a fool I have been," he concluded. "De Coude and his wife were
both my friends. How have I returned their friendship? Barely did I
escape murdering the count. I have cast a stigma on the name of a good
woman. It is very probable that I have broken up a happy home."

"Do you love Olga de Coude?" asked D'Arnot.

"Were I not positive that she does not love me I could not answer your
question, Paul; but without disloyalty to her I tell you that I do not
love her, nor does she love me. For an instant we were the victims of
a sudden madness--it was not love--and it would have left us, unharmed,