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Chapter 1 - Kidnapped
"The entire affair is shrouded in mystery," said D'Arnot. "I have it on the best of
authority that neither the police nor the special agents of the general staff have
the faintest conception of how it was accomplished. All they know, all that
anyone knows, is that Nikolas Rokoff has escaped."
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke--he who had been "Tarzan of the Apes"--sat in
silence in the apartments of his friend, Lieutenant Paul D'Arnot, in Paris, gazing
meditatively at the toe of his immaculate boot.
His mind revolved many memories, recalled by the escape of his arch-enemy from
the French military prison to which he had been sentenced for life upon the
testimony of the ape-man.
He thought of the lengths to which Rokoff had once gone to compass his death,
and he realized that what the man had already done would doubtless be as
nothing by comparison with what he would wish and plot to do now that he was
again free.
Tarzan had recently brought his wife and infant son to London to escape the
discomforts and dangers of the rainy season upon their vast estate in Uziri--the
land of the savage Waziri warriors whose broad African domains the ape-man had
once ruled.
He had run across the Channel for a brief visit with his old friend, but the news
of the Russian's escape had already cast a shadow upon his outing, so that
though he had but just arrived he was already contemplating an immediate
return to London.
"It is not that I fear for myself, Paul," he said at last. "Many times in the past
have I thwarted Rokoff's designs upon my life; but now there are others to
consider. Unless I misjudge the man, he would more quickly strike at me
through my wife or son than directly at me, for he doubtless realizes that in no
other way could he inflict greater anguish upon me. I must go back to them at
once, and remain with them until Rokoff is recaptured--or dead."
As these two talked in Paris, two other men were talking together in a little
cottage upon the outskirts of London. Both were dark, sinister-looking men.
One was bearded, but the other, whose face wore the pallor of long confinement
within doors, had but a few days' growth of black beard upon his face. It was he
who was speaking.
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