"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."
There was little comfort upon the cold, hard stones of the dungeon floor, but Tarzan, inured to hardship from birth, slept soundly until the coming of the jailer with food awakened him several hours after sunrise. Water and coarse bread were doled out to the inmates of the dungeon by slaves in charge of a surly half-caste in the uniform of a legionary.
As he ate, Tarzan surveyed his fellow prisoners. There was Cassius Hasta of Castrum Mare, son of a Caesar, and Maximus Praeclarus, a patrician of Castra Sanguinarius and captain of Legionaries. These, with himself, were the only whites. There was Lukedi, the Bagego who had befriended him in the village of Nyuto, and Mpingu, the slave of Dion Splendidus, who had betrayed him, and now, in the light from the little barred window, he recognized also another Bagego—Ogonyo, who still cast fearful eyes upon Tarzan as one might upon any person who was on familiar terms with the ghost of one's grandfather.
In addition to these three, there were five strapping warriors from the outer villages of Castra Sanguinarius, picked men chosen because of their superb physiques for the gladiatorial contests that would form so important a part of the games that would shortly take place in the arena for the glorification of Caesar and the edification of the masses. The small room was so crowded that there was barely space upon the floor for the eleven to stretch their bodies, yet there was one vacant ring in the stone wall, indicating that the full capacity of the dungeon had not been reached.
Two days and nights dragged slowly by. The inmates of the cell amused themselves as best they could, though the Negroes were too downcast to take a lively interest in anything other than their own sad forebodings.
Tarzan talked much with these and especially with the five warriors from the outer villages. From long experience with them he knew the minds and the hearts of these men, and it was not difficult for him to win their confidence and, presently, he was able to instill within them something of his own courageous self-reliance, which could never accept or admit absolute defeat.
He talked with Praeclarus about Castra Sanguinarius and with Cassius Hasta about Castrum Mare. He learned all that they could tell him about the forthcoming triumph and games; about the military methods of their people, their laws and their customs until he, who all his Life had been accounted taciturn, might easily have been indicted for loquacity by his fellow prisoners, yet, though they might not realize it, he asked them nothing without a well-defined purpose.