“Do not fear,” he said to them, “I shall not harm him.”
It was most unusual, but they halted. Tarzan advanced until he was quite close to De Coude.
“There must have been something wrong with monsieur’s pistol,” he said. “Or monsieur is unstrung. Take mine, monsieur, and try again,” and Tarzan offered his pistol, butt foremost, to the astonished De Coude.
“Mon Dieu, monsieur!” cried the latter. “Are you mad?”
“No, my friend,” replied the ape-man; “but I deserve to die. It is the only way in which I may atone for the wrong I have done a very good woman. Take my pistol and do as I bid.”
“It would be murder,” replied De Coude. “But what wrong did you do my wife? She swore to me that—”
“I do not mean that,” said Tarzan quickly. “You saw all the wrong that passed between us. But that was enough to cast a shadow upon her name, and to ruin the happiness of a man against whom I had no enmity. The fault was all mine, and so I hoped to die for it this morning. I am disappointed that monsieur is not so wonderful a marksman as I had been led to believe.”
“You say that the fault was all yours?” asked De Coude eagerly.
“All mine, monsieur. Your wife is a very pure woman. She loves only you. The fault that you saw was all mine. The thing that brought me there was no fault of either the Countess de Coude or myself. Here is a paper which will quite positively demonstrate that,” and Tarzan drew from his pocket the statement Rokoff had written and signed.
De Coude took it and read. D’Arnot and Monsieur Flaubert had drawn near. They were interested spectators of this strange ending of a strange duel. None spoke until De Coude had quite finished, then he looked up at Tarzan.