"But who could have made it?"
"I made it."
"You! How could we have a map that you made? Have you returned to England since you first came here?"
"No—but I made that map."
"You came here because you hated men and to escape them. It is not reasonable that you should have made a map to invite men here, and if you did make it how did it get to America or to England or wherever it was that these—my people got it?" demanded Tarzan.
"I will tell you. I loved a girl. She was not interested in a poor scientist with no financial future ahead of him. She wanted wealth and luxuries. She wanted a rich husband.
"When I came to this valley and found the diamonds I thought of her. I cannot say that I still loved her, but I wanted her. I should have liked to be revenged upon her for the suffering that she had caused me. I thought what a fine revenge it would be to get her here and keep her here as long as she lived. I would give her wealth—more wealth than any other creature in the world possessed; but she would be unable to buy anything with it." He chuckled as he recalled his plan.
"So I made the map, and I wrote her a letter. I told her to tell no one but to come here alone; so that no one else would know about our treasure and steal it from us. I told her just what to do, where to land, and how to form her safari. Then I waited. I have been waiting for seventy-four years, but she has never come.
"I had gone to considerable effort to get the letter to her. It had been necessary for me to go a long way from the valley to find a friendly tribe of natives and employ one of them as a runner to take my letter to the coast. I never knew whether or not the letter reached the coast. The runner might have been killed. Many things might have happened. I often wondered what became of the map. Now it has come back to me—after seventy-four years." Again he chuckled. "And brought another girl—a very much prettier girl. Mine would be—let's see—ninety-four years old, a toothless old hag." He sighed. "But now I suppose that I shall not have either of them."
There was a sound at the outer door. Tarzan sprang to his feet. The door opened, and an old gorilla started to enter. At sight of the ape-man he bared his fangs and paused.