TARZAN OF THE APES
it also. Now we may talk. First let me thank you for all that you have done for me."
The man only shook his head and pointed to the pencil and the bark.
"Mon Dieu!" cried D'Arnot. "If you are English why is it then that you cannot speak English?"
And then in a flash it came to him—the man was a mute, possibly a deaf mute.
So D'Arnot wrote a message on the bark, in English.
I am Paul d'Arnot, Lieutenant in the navy of France. I thank you for what you have done for me. You have saved my life, and all that I have is yours. May I ask how it is that one who writes English does not speak it?
Tarzan's reply filled D'Arnot with still greater wonder:
I speak only the language of my tribe—the great apes who were Kerchak's; and a little of the languages of Tantor, the elephant, and Numa, the lion, and of the other folks of the jungle I understand. With a human being I have never spoken, except once with Jane Porter, by signs. This is the first time I have spoken with another of my kind through written words.
D'Arnot was mystified. It seemed incredible that there lived upon earth a full grown man who had never spoken with a fellow man, and still more preposterous that such a one could read and write.
He looked again at Tarzan's message—"except once, with Jane Porter." That was the
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