recaptured?'
'It was done by treachery,' replied Tarzan, 'and the quickness with which they locked the shackles upon me. Without these,' and he shook the manacles upon his wrists, 'they could not hold me. But who are you and what did you do to get yourself in the dungeons of Caesar?'
'I am in the dungeon of no Caesar,' replied the other. 'This creature who sits upon the throne of Castra Sanguinarius is no Caesar.'
'Who then is Caesar?' inquired Tarzan.
'Only the Emperors of the East are entitled to be called Caesar,' replied the other.
'I take it that you are not of Castra Sanguinarius then,' suggested the ape-man.
'No,' replied the other, 'I am from Castrum Mare.'
'And why are you a prisoner?' asked Tarzan.
'Because I am from Castrum Mare,' replied the other.
'Is that a crime in Castra Sanguinarius?' asked the ape-man.
'We are always enemies,' replied the other. 'We trade occasionally under a flag of truce, for we have things that they want and they have things that we must have, but there is much raiding and often there are wars, and then whichever side is victorious takes the things by force that otherwise they would be compelled to pay for.'
'In this small valley what is there that one of you may have that the other one has not already?' asked the ape-man.
'We of Castrum Mare have the iron mines,' replied the other, 'and we have the papyrus swamps and the lake, which give us many things that the people of Castra Sanguinarius can obtain only from us. We sell them iron and paper, ink, snails, fish, and jewels, and many manufactured articles. In their end of the valley they mine gold, and as they control the only entrance to the country from the outside world, we are forced to obtain our slaves through them as well as new breeding-stock for our herds.
'As the Sanguinarians are naturally thieves and raiders and are too lazy to work and too ignorant to teach their slaves how to produce things, they depend entirely upon their gold mine and their raiding and trading with the outer world, while we, who have developed many skilled artisans, have been in a position for many generations that permitted us to obtain much more gold and many more slaves than we need in return for our manufactured articles. Today we are much richer than the Sanguinarians. We live better. We are more cultured. We are happier and the Sanguinarians are jealous and their hatred of us has increased.'
'Knowing these things,' asked Tarzan, 'how is it that you came to the country of your enemies and permitted yourself to be captured?'
'I was delivered over treacherously into the hands of Sublatus by my uncle, Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East,' replied the other. 'My name is Cassius Hasta, and my father was Emperor before Validus. Validus is afraid that I may wish to seize the purple, and for this reason he plotted to get rid of me without assuming any responsibility for the act; so he conceived the idea of sending me upon a military mission, after bribing one of the servants who accompanied me to deliver me into the hands of Sublatus.'
'What will Sublatus do with you?' asked Tarzan.
'The same thing that he will do with you,' replied Cassius Hasta. 'We shall be exhibited in the triumph of Sublatus, which he holds annually, and then in the arena we shall amuse them until we are slain.'
'And when does this take place?' asked Tarzan.
'It will not be long now,' replied Cassius Hasta. 'Already they have collected so many prisoners to exhibit in the triumph and to take part in the combats in the arena that they are forced to confine Negroes and whites in the same dungeons, a thing they do not ordinarily do.'
'Are these Negroes held here for this purpose?' asked the ape-man.
'Yes,' replied the other.
Tarzan turned in the direction of Lukedi, whom he could not see in the darkness. 'Lukedi!' he called.
'What is it?' asked the black, listlessly.
'You are well?' asked Tarzan.
'I am going to die,' replied Lukedi. 'They will feed me to lions or burn me upon a cross or make me fight with other warriors, so that it will be all the same for Lukedi. It was a sad day when Nyuto, the chief, captured Tarzan.'
'Are all these men from your village?' asked Tarzan.
'No,' replied Lukedi. 'Most of them are from the villages outside the walls of Castra Sanguinarius.'
'Yesterday they called us their own people,' spoke up a man, who understood the language of the Bagego, 'and tomorrow they make us kill one another to entertain Caesar.'
'You must be very few in numbers or very poor in spirit,' said Tarzan, 'that you submit to such treatment.'
'We number nearly twice as many as the people in the city,' said the man, 'and we are brave warriors.'
'Then you are fools,' said Tarzan. 'We shall not be fools forever. Already there are many who would rise against Sublatus and the whites of Castra Sanguinarius.'
'The Negroes of the city as well as those of the outer villages hate Caesar,' said Mpingu, who had been brought to the dungeon with Tarzan.
The statements of the men furnished food for thought to Tarzan. He knew that in the city there must be hundreds and perhaps thousands of African slaves and many thousands of others in the outer Villages. If a leader should arise among them, the tyranny of Caesar might be brought to an abrupt end. He spoke of the matter to Cassius Hasta, but the patrician assured him that no such leader would ever arise.
'We have dominated them for so many centuries,' he explained, 'that fear of us is an inherited instinct. Our slaves will never rise against their masters.'
'But if they did?' asked Tarzan.
'Unless they had a white leader they could not succeed,' replied Hasta.
'And why not a white leader then?' asked Tarzan.
'That is unthinkable,' replied Hasta.
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a detachment of soldiers, and as they halted before the entrance to the dungeon and threw open the gate Tarzan saw, in the light of their torches, that they were bringing another prisoner. As they dragged the man in, he recognized Maximus Praeclarus. He saw that Praeclarus recognized him, but as the Roman did not address him, Tarzan kept silent, too. The soldiers chained Praeclarus to the wall, and after they had left and the dungeon was in darkness again, the young officer spoke.
'I see now why I am here,' said Praeclarus, 'but even when they set upon me and arrested me in the vestibule of my home, I had guessed as much, after piecing together the insinuations of Fastus at the banquet this evening.'
'I have been fearful that by befriending me you would bring disaster upon yourself,' said Tarzan.
'Do not reproach yourself,' said Praeclarus. 'Fastus or Sublatus would have found another excuse. I have been doomed from the moment that the attention of Fastus fixed itself upon Dilecta. To attain his end it was necessary that I be destroyed. That is all, my friend, but yet I wonder who it could have been that betrayed me.'
'It was I,' said a voice out of the darkness.
'Who is that that speaks?' demanded Praeclarus.
'It is Mpingu,' said Tarzan. 'He was arrested with me when we were on the way to the home of Dion Splendidus to meet you.'
'To meet me!' exclaimed Praeclarus.
'I lied,' said Mpingu, 'but they made me.'
'Who made you?' demanded Praeclarus.
'The officers of Caesar and Caesar's son,' replied Mpingu. 'They dragged me to the palace of the Emperor and held me down upon my back and brought tongs to tear out my tongue and hot irons to burn out my eyes. Oh, master, what else could I do? I am only a poor slave and I was afraid and Caesar is very terrible.'
'I understand,' said Praeclarus. 'I do not blame you, Mpingu.'
'They promised to give me my liberty,' said the slave, 'but instead they have chained me in this dungeon. Doubtless I shall die in the arena, but that I do not fear. It was the tongs and the red-hot irons that made me a coward. Nothing else could have forced me to betray the friend of my master.'
