ing in
silent prayer, and as they rose and stood on either side of the now
peaceful form, tears came to the ape-man's eyes, for through the
anguish that his own heart had suffered he had learned compassion for
the suffering of others.

Through her own tears the girl read the message upon the bit of faded
yellow paper, and as she read her eyes went very wide. Twice she read
those startling words before she could fully comprehend their meaning.

Finger prints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations.

D'ARNOT.

She handed the paper to Tarzan. "And he has known it all this time,"
she said, "and did not tell you?"

"I knew it first, Jane," replied the man. "I did not know that he knew
it at all. I must have dropped this message that night in the waiting
room. It was there that I received it."

"And afterward you told us that your mother was a she-ape, and that you
had never known your father?" she asked incredulously.

"The title and the estates meant nothing to me without you, dear," he
replied. "And if I had taken them away from him I should have been
robbing the woman I love--don't you understand, Jane?" It was as
though he attempted to excuse a fault.

She extended her arms toward him across the body of the dead man, and
took his hands in hers.

"And I would have thrown away a love like that!" she said.

Chapter 26

The Passing of the Ape-Man

The next morning they set out upon the short journey to Tarzan's cabin.
Four Waziri bore the body of the dead Englishman. It had been the
ape-man's suggestion that Clayton be buried beside the former Lord
Greystoke near the edge of the jungle against the cabin that the older
man had built.

Jane Porter was glad that it was to be so, and in her heart of hearts
she wondered at the marvelous fineness of character of this wondrous
man, who, though raised by brutes and among brutes, had the true
chivalry and tenderness which only associates with the refinements of
the highest civilization.

They had proceeded some three miles of the five that had separated them
from Tarzan's own beach when the Waziri who were ahead stopped
suddenly, pointing in amazement at a strange figure approaching them
along the beach. It was a man with a shiny silk hat, who walked slowly
with bent head, and hands clasped behind him underneath the tails of
his long, black coat.

At sight of him Jane Porter uttered a little cry of surprise