'You have heard the noble praefect,' replied the Emperor, haughtily.
'Good,' said Tarzan. 'The rules of the contest shall be fulfilled.' He stooped and seized the unconscious form of his antagonist and raised it above his head. 'Thus I carried your Emperor from his throne-room to the avenue!' he shouted to the audience.
Screams of delight measured the appreciation of the populace, while Caesar went white and red in anger and mortification. He half rose from his seat, but what he contemplated was never fulfilled, for at that instant Tarzan swung the body of the murderer downward and back like a huge pendulum and then upward with a mighty surge, hurling it over the arena wall, full into the loge of Sublatus, where it struck Caesar, knocking him to the floor.
'I am alive and alone in the arena,' shouted Tarzan, turning to the people, 'and by the terms of the contest I am victor,' and not even Caesar dared question the decision that was voiced by the shrieking, screaming, applauding multitude.
Chapter Fifteen
BLOODY days followed restless nights in comfortless cells, where lice and rats joined forces to banish rest. When the games began there had been twelve inmates in the cell occupied by Tarzan, but now three empty rings dangled against the stone wall, and each day they wondered whose turn was next.
The others did not reproach Tarzan because of his failure to free them, since they had never taken his optimism seriously. They could not conceive of contestants escaping from the arena during the games. It simply was not done and that was all that there was to it. It never had been done, and it never would be.
'We know you meant well,' said Praeclarus, 'but we knew better than you.'
'The conditions have not been right, as yet,' said Tarzan, 'but if what I have been told of the games is true, the time will come.'
'What time could be propitious,' asked Hasta, 'while more than half of Caesar's legionaries packed the Colosseum?'
'There should be a time,' Tarzan reminded him, 'when all the victorious contestants are in the arena together. Then we shall rush Caesar's loge and drag him into the arena. With Sublatus as a hostage we may demand a hearing and get it. I venture to say that they will give us our liberty in return for Caesar.'
'But how can we enter Caesar's loge?' demanded Metellus.
'In an instant we may form steps with living men stooping, while others step upon their backs as soldiers scale a wall. Perhaps some of us will be killed, but enough will succeed to seize Caesar and drag him to the sands.'
'I wish you luck,' said Praeclarus, 'and, by Jupiter, I believe that you will succeed. I only wish that I might be with you.'
'You will not accompany us?' demanded Tarzan.
'How can I? I shall be locked in this cell. Is it not evident that they do not intend to enter me in the contests? They are reserving for me some other fate. The jailer has told me that my name appears in no event.'
'But we must find a way to take you with us,' said Tarzan.
'There is no way,' said Praeclarus, shaking his head, sadly.
'Wait,' said Tarzan. 'You commanded the Colosseum guards, did you not?'
'Yes,' replied Praeclarus.
'And you had the keys to the cells?' asked the ape-man.
'Yes,' replied Praeclarus, 'and to the manacles as well.'
'Where are they?' asked Tarzan. 'But no, that will not do. They must have taken them from you when they arrested you.'
'No, they did not,' said Praeclarus. 'As a matter of fact, I did not have them with me when I dressed for the banquet that night. I left them in my room.'
'But perhaps they sent for them?'
'Yes, they sent for them, but they did not find them. The jailer asked me about them the day after I was arrested, but I told him that the soldiers took them from me. I told him that because I had hidden them in a secret place where I keep many valuables. I knew that if I had told them where they were they would take not only the keys, but my valuables as well.'
'Good!' exclaimed the ape-man. 'With the keys our problem is solved.'
'But how are you going to get them?' demanded Praeclarus, with a rueful smile.
'I do not know,' said Tarzan. 'All I know is that we must have the keys.'
'We know, too, that we should have our liberty,' said Hasta, 'but knowing it does not make us free.'
Their conversation was interrupted by the approach of soldiers along the corridor. Presently a detachment of the palace guard halted outside their cell. The jailer unlocked the door and a man entered with two torch-bearers behind him. It was Fastus.
He looked around the cell. 'Where is Praeclarus?' he demanded, and then, 'Ah, there you are!'
Praeclarus did not reply.
'Stand up, slave!' ordered Fastus, arrogantly. 'Stand up, all of you. How dare you sit in the presence of a Caesar!' he exclaimed.
'Swine is a better title for such as you,' taunted Praeclarus.
'Drag them up! Beat them with your pikes!' cried Fastus to the soldiers outside the doorway.
The command of the Colosseum guard, who stood just behind Fastus, blocked the doorway, 'Stand back,' he said to the legionaries. 'No one gives orders here except Caesar and myself, and you are not Caesar yet, Fastus.'
'I shall be one day,' snapped the prince, 'and it will be a sad day for you.'
'It will be a sad day for all Castra Sanguinarius,' replied the officer. 'You said that you wished to speak to Praeclarus? Say what you have to say and be gone. Not even Caesar's son may interfere with my charges.'
Fastus trembled with anger, but he knew that he was powerless. The commander of the guard spoke with the authority of the Emperor, whom he represented. He turned upon Praeclarus.
'I came to invite my good friend, Maximus Praeclarus, to my wedding,' he announced, with a sneer. He waited, but Praeclarus made no reply. 'You do not seem duly impressed, Praeclarus,' continued the prince. 'You do not ask who is to be the happy bride. Do you not wish to know who will be the next Empress in Castra Sanguinarius, even though you may not live to see her upon the throne beside Caesar?'
The heart of Maximus Praeclarus stood still, for now he knew why Fastus had come to the dungeon-cell, but he gave no sign of what was passing within his breast, but remained seated in silence upon the hard floor, his back against the cold wall.
'You do not ask me whom I am to wed, nor when,' continued Fastus, 'but I shall tell you. You should be interested. Dilecta, the daughter of Dion Splendidus, will have none of a traitor and a felon. She aspires to share the purple with a Caesar. In the evening following the last day of the games Dilecta and Fastus are to be married in the throne-room of the palace.'
Gloating, Fastus waited to know the result of his announcement, but if he had looked to surprise Maximus Praeclarus into an exhibition of chagrin he failed, for the young patrician ignored him so completely that Fastus might not have been in the cell at all for all the attention that the other paid to him.
Maximus Praeclarus turned and spoke casually to Metellus and the quiet affront aroused the mounting anger of Fastus to such an extent that he lost what little control he had of himself. Stepping quickly forward, he stooped and slapped Praeclarus in the face and then spat upon him, but in doing so he had come too close to Tarzan and the ape-man reached out and seized him by the ankle, dragging him to the floor.
Fastus screamed a command to his soldiers. He sought to draw his dagger or his sword, but Tarzan took them from him and hurled the prince into the arms of the legionaries, who had rushed past the commander of the Colosseum guard and entered the cell.
'Get out now, Fastus,' said the latter. 'You have caused enough trouble here already.'
'I shall get you for this,' hissed the prince, 'all of you,' and he swept the inmates of the cell with an angry, menacing glance.
