As the trainer, with raised lash, hesitated an instant at theentrance to the box where the boy and the ape confrontedhim, a tall broad-shouldered man pushed past him and entered. As his eyes fell upon the newcomer a slight flush mounted theboy's cheeks.

"Father!" he exclaimed.

The ape gave one look at the English lord, and then leapedtoward him, calling out in excited jabbering. The man, his eyesgoing wide in astonishment, stopped as though turned to stone.

"Akut!" he cried.

The boy looked, bewildered, from the ape to his father, andfrom his father to the ape. The trainer's jaw dropped as helistened to what followed, for from the lips of the Englishmanflowed the gutturals of an ape that were answered in kind by thehuge anthropoid that now clung to him.

And from the wings a hideously bent and disfigured old manwatched the tableau in the box, his pock-marked features workingspasmodically in varying expressions that might have markedevery sensation in the gamut from pleasure to terror.

"Long have I looked for you, Tarzan," said Akut. "Now that Ihave found you I shall come to your jungle and live there always."

The man stroked the beast's head. Through his mind therewas running rapidly a train of recollection that carried himfar into the depths of the primeval African forest where thishuge, man-like beast had fought shoulder to shoulder with himyears before. He saw the black Mugambi wielding his deadly knob-stick, and beside them, with bared fangs and bristling whiskers,Sheeta the terrible; and pressing close behind the savage andthe savage panther, the hideous apes of Akut. The man sighed. Strong within him surged the jungle lust that he had thought dead. Ah! if he could go back even for a brief month of it, to feelagain the brush of leafy branches against his naked hide; tosmell the musty rot of dead vegetation--frankincense and myrrhto the jungle born; to sense the noiseless coming of the greatcarnivora upon his trail; to hunt and to be hunted; to kill! The picture was alluring. And then came another picture--a sweet-faced woman, still young and beautiful; friends; a home; a son. He shrugged his giant shoulders.

"It cannot be, Akut," he said; "but if you would return, Ishall see that it is done. You could not be happy here--I maynot be happy there."

The trainer stepped forward. The ape bared his fangs, growling.

"Go with him, Akut," said Tarzan of the Apes. "I will comeand see you tomorrow."

The beast moved sullenly to the trainer's side. The latter,at John Clayton's request, told where they might be found. Tarzan turned toward his son.

"Come!" he said, and the two left the theater. Neither spokefor several minutes after they had entered the limousine. It wasthe boy who broke the silence.

"The ape knew you," he said, "and you spoke together inthe ape's tongue. How did the ape know you, and how did youlearn his language?"

And then, briefly and for the first time, Tarzan of the Apestold his son of his early life--of the birth in the jungle, ofthe death of his parents, and of how Kala, the great she ape hadsuckled and raised him from infancy almost to manhood. He toldhim, too, of the dangers and the horrors of the jungle; ofthe great beasts that stalked one by day and by night; of theperiods of drought, and of the cataclysmic rains; of hunger; ofcold; of intense heat; of nakedness and fear and suffering. He told him of all those things that seem most horrible to thecreature of civilization in the hope that the knowledge of themmight expunge from the lad's mind any inherent desire for the jungle. Yet they were the very things that made the memory of the junglewhat it was to Tarzan--that made up the composite jungle lifehe loved. And in the telling he forgot one thing--the principalthing--that the boy at his side, listening with eager ears, wasthe son of Tarzan of the Apes.

After the boy had been tucked away in bed--and without thethreatened punishment--John Clayton told his wife of the eventsof the evening, and that he had at last acquainted the boy withthe facts of his jungle life. The mother, who had long foreseenthat her son must some time know of those frightful years duringwhich his father had roamed the jungle, a naked, savage beastof prey, only shook her head, hoping against hope that the lureshe knew was still strong in the father's breast had not beentransmitted to his son.

Tarzan visited Akut the following day, but though Jack beggedto be allowed to accompany him he was refused. This timeTarzan saw the pock-marked old owner of the ape, whom hedid not recognize as the wily Paulvitch of former days. Tarzan, influenced by Akut's pleadings, broached the questionof the ape's purchase; but Paulvitch would not name any price,saying that he would consider the matter.

When Tarzan returned home Jack was all excitement to hear thedetails of his visit, and finally suggested that his fatherbuy the ape and bring it home. Lady Greystoke was horrified atthe suggestion. The boy was insistent. Tarzan explained that hehad wished to purchase Akut and return him to his jungle home, andto this the mother assented. Jack asked to be allowed to visit theape, but again he was met with flat refusal. He had the address,however, which the trainer had given his father, and two dayslater he found the opportunity to elude his new tutor--who hadreplaced the terrified Mr. Moore--and after a considerablesearch through a section of London which he had never beforevisited, he found the smelly little quarters of the pock-markedold man. The old fellow himself replied to his knocking, andwhen he stated that he had come to see Ajax, opened the doorand admitted him to the little room which he and the greatape occupied. In former years Paulvitch had been a fastidiousscoundrel; but ten years of hideous life among the cannibals ofAfrica had eradicated the last vestige of niceness from his habits. His apparel was wrinkled and soiled. His hands were unwashed,his few straggling locks uncombed. His room was a jumble offilthy disorder. As the boy entered he saw the great ape squattingupon the bed, the coverlets of which were a tangled wad of filthyblankets and ill-smelling quilts. At sight of the youth the apeleaped to the floor and shuffled forward. The man, not recognizinghis visitor and fearing that the ape meant mischief, steppedbetween them, ordering the ape back to the bed.

"He will not hurt me," cried the boy. "We are friends, and before,he was my father's friend. They knew one another in the jungle. My father is Lord Greystoke. He does not know that I havecome here. My mother forbid my coming; but I wished to see Ajax,and I will pay you if you will let me come here often and see him."

At the mention of the boy's identity Paulvitch's eyes narrowed. Since he had first seen Tarzan again from the wings ofthe theater there had been forming in his deadened brain thebeginnings of a desire for revenge. It is a characteristic of theweak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that arethe result of their own wickedness, and so now it was that AlexisPaulvitch was slowly recalling the events of his past life and ashe did so laying at the door of the man whom he and Rokoff hadso assiduously attempted to ruin and murder all the misfortunesthat had befallen him in the failure of their various schemesagainst their intended victim.

He saw at first no way in which he could, with safety tohimself, wreak vengeance upon Tarzan through the medium ofTarzan's son; but that great possibilities for revenge lay in theboy was apparent to him, and so he determined to cultivate thelad in the hope that fate would play into his hands in some wayin the future. He told the boy all that he knew of his father'spast life in the jungle and when he found that the boy had been keptin ignorance of all these things for so many years, and that hehad been forbidden visiting the zoological gardens; that he hadhad to bind and gag his tutor to find an opportunity to come tothe music hall and see Ajax, he guessed immediately the natureof the great fear that lay in the hearts of the boy's parents--that he might crave the jungle as his father had craved it.

And so Paulvitch encouraged the boy to come and see him often,and always he played upon the lad's craving for tales of thesavage world with which Paulvitch was all too familiar. He lefthim alone with Akut much, and it was not long until he wassurprised to learn that the boy could make the great beastunderstand him--that he had actually learned many of the wordsof the primitive language of the anthropoids.

During this period Tarzan came several times to visit Paulvitch. He seemed anxious to purchase Ajax, and at last he toldthe man frankly that he was prompted not only by a desire uponhis part to return the beast to the liberty of his native jungle;but also because his wife feared that in some way her son mightlearn the whereabouts of the ape and through his attachment forthe beast become imbued with the roving instinct which, asTarzan explained to Paulvitch, had so influenced his own life.

The Russian could scarce repress a smile as he listened toLord Greystoke's words, since scarce a half hour had passedsince the time the future Lord Greystoke had been sitting uponthe disordered bed jabbering away to Ajax with all the fluencyof a born ape.

It was during this interview that a plan occurred to Paulvitch,and as a result of it he agreed to accept a certain fabulous sumfor the ape, and upon receipt of the money to deliver the beastto a vessel that was sailing south from Dover for Africa twodays later. He had a double purpose in accepting Clayton's offer.Primarily, the money consideration influenced him strongly, asthe ape was no longer a source of revenue to him, havingconsistently refused to perform upon the stage after havingdiscovered Tarzan. It was as though the beast had suffered himselfto be brought from his jungle home and exhibited before thousandsof curious spectators for the sole purpose of searching out hislong lost friend and master, and, having found him, consideredfurther mingling with the common herd of humans unnecessary.However that may be, the fact remained that no amount of persuasioncould influence him even to show himself upon the music hall stage,and upon the single occasion that the trainer attempted force theresults were such that the unfortunate man considered himselflucky to have escaped with his life. All that saved him was theaccidental presence of Jack Clayton, who had been permitted tovisit the animal in the dressing room reserved for him at themusic hall, and had immediately interfered when he saw that thesavage beast meant serious mischief.

And after the money consideration, strong in the heart of theRussian was the desire for revenge, which had been growing withconstant brooding over the failures and miseries of his life,which he attributed to Tarzan; the latest, and by no means theleast, of which was Ajax's refusal to longer earn money for him.The ape's refusal he traced directly to Tarzan, finally convincinghimself that the ape man had instructed the great anthropoid torefuse to go upon the stage.

Paulvitch's naturally malign disposition was aggravated by theweakening and warping of his mental and physical facultiesthrough torture and privation. From cold, calculating, highlyintelligent perversity it had deteriorated into theindiscriminating, dangerous menace of the mentally defective. His plan, however, was sufficiently cunning to at least casta doubt upon the assertion that his mentality was wandering. It assured him first of the competence which Lord Greystokehad promised to pay him for the deportation of the ape, andthen of revenge upon his benefactor through the son he idolized. That part of his scheme was crude and brutal--it lacked therefinement of torture that had marked the master strokes of thePaulvitch of old, when he had worked with that virtuoso ofvillainy, Nikolas Rokoff--but it at least assured Paulvitch ofimmunity from responsibility, placing that upon the ape, whowould thus also be punished for his refusal longer to supportthe Russian.

Everything played with fiendish unanimity into Paulvitch's hands. As chance would have it, Tarzan's son overheard his fatherrelating to the boy's mother the steps he was taking to returnAkut safely to his jungle home, and having overheard he beggedthem to bring the ape home that he might have him for aplay-fellow. Tarzan would not have been averse to this plan;but Lady Greystoke was horrified at the very thought of it. Jack pleaded with his mother; but all unavailingly. She wasobdurate, and at last the lad appeared to acquiesce in hismother's decision that the ape must be returned to Africa andthe boy to school, from which he had been absent on vacation.

He did not attempt to visit Paulvitch's room again that day,but instead busied himself in other ways. He had always beenwell supplied with money, so that when necessity demanded hehad no difficulty in collecting several hundred pounds. Some ofthis money he invested in various strange purchases which hemanaged to smuggle into the house, undetected, when he returnedlate in the afternoon.

The next morning, after giving his father time to precede himand conclude his business with Paulvitch, the lad hastened tothe Russian's room. Knowing nothing of the man's true characterthe boy dared not take him fully into his confidence forfear that the old fellow would not only refuse to aid him, butwould report the whole affair to his father. Instead, he simplyasked permission to take Ajax to Dover. He explained that itwould relieve the old man of a tiresome journey, as well asplacing a number of pounds in his pocket, for the lad purposedpaying the Russian well.

"You see," he went on, "there will be no danger of detectionsince I am supposed to be leaving on an afternoon train for school. Instead I will come here after they have left me on boardthe train. Then I can take Ajax to Dover, you see, and arrive atschool only a day late. No one will be the wiser, no harm willbe done, and I shall have had an extra day with Ajax before Ilose him forever."

The plan fitted perfectly with that which Paulvitch had in mind. Had he known what further the boy contemplated he would doubtlesshave entirely abandoned his own scheme of revenge and aided theboy whole heartedly in the consummation of the lad's, which wouldhave been better for Paulvitch, could he have but read the futurebut a few short hours ahead.

That afternoon Lord and Lady Greystoke bid their son good-bye and saw him safely settled in a first-class compartment ofthe railway carriage that would set him down at school in afew hours. No sooner had they left him, however, than hegathered his bags together, descended from the compartment andsought a cab stand outside the station. Here he engaged a cabbyto take him to the Russian's address. It was dusk when he arrived. He found Paulvitch awaiting him. The man was pacing the floornervously. The ape was tied with a stout cord to the bed. It wasthe first time that Jack had ever seen Ajax thus secured. He lookedquestioningly at Paulvitch. The man, mumbling, explained that hebelieved the animal had guessed that he was to be sent away and hefeared he would attempt to escape.

Paulvitch carried another piece of cord in his hand. There wasa noose in one end of it which he was continually playing with. He walked back and forth, up and down the room. His pock-markedfeatures were working horribly as he talked silent to himself. The boy had never seen him thus--it made him uneasy. At lastPaulvitch stopped on the opposite side of the room, far from the ape.

"Come here," he said to the lad. "I will show you how to securethe ape should he show signs of rebellion during the trip."

The lad laughed. "It will not be necessary," he replied. "Ajax will do whatever I tell him to do."

The old man stamped his foot angrily. "Come here, as I tell you,"he repeated. "If you do not do as I say you shall not accompanythe ape to Dover--I will take no chances upon his escaping."

Still smiling, the lad crossed the room and stood before the Russ.

"Turn around, with your back toward me," directed the latter,"that I may show you how to bind him quickly."

The boy did as he was bid, placing his hands behind him whenPaulvitch told him to do so. Instantly the old man slippedthe running noose over one of the lad's wrists, took a couple ofhalf hitches about his other wrist, and knotted the cord.

The moment that the boy was secured the attitude of theman changed. With an angry oath he wheeled his prisoner about,tripped him and hurled him violently to the floor, leaping uponhis breast as he fell. From the bed the ape growled and struggledwith his bonds. The boy did not cry out--a trait inherited fromhis savage sire whom long years in the jungle following the deathof his foster mother, Kala the great ape, had taught that therewas none to come to the succor of the fallen.

Paulvitch's fingers sought the lad's throat. He grinned downhorribly into the face of his victim.

"Your father ruined me," he mumbled. "This will pay him. He willthink that the ape did it. I will tell him that the ape did it. That I left him alone for a few minutes, and that you sneakedin and the ape killed you. I will throw your body upon the bedafter I have choked the life from you, and when I bring yourfather he will see the ape squatting over it," and the twistedfiend cackled in gloating laughter. His fingers closed upon theboy's throat.

Behind them the growling of the maddened beast reverberatedagainst the walls of the little room. The boy paled, but no othersign of fear or panic showed upon his countenance. He was theson of Tarzan. The fingers tightened their grip upon his throat.It was with difficulty that he breathed, gaspingly. The ape lungedagainst the stout cord that held him. Turning, he wrapped thecord about his hands, as a man might have done, and surgedheavily backward. The great muscles stood out beneath hisshaggy hide. There was a rending as of splintered wood--thecord held, but a portion of the footboard of the bed came away.

At the sound Paulvitch looked up. His hideous face wentwhite with terror--the ape was free.

With a single bound the creature was upon him. The man shrieked. The brute wrenched him from the body of the boy. Great fingerssunk into the man's flesh. Yellow fangs gaped close to histhroat--he struggled, futilely--and when they closed, the soulof Alexis Paulvitch passed into the keeping of the demons whohad long been awaiting it.

The boy struggled to his feet, assisted by Akut. For two hoursunder the instructions of the former the ape worked upon theknots that secured his friend's wrists. Finally they gave uptheir secret, and the boy was free. Then he opened one of hisbags and drew forth some garments. His plans had been well made. He did not consult the beast, which did all that he directed. Together they slunk from the house, but no casual observer mighthave noted that one of them was an ape.