Von Harben had been a close student of ancient Rome and its long-dead language, but how different was the living tongue, which he heard and which he recognized for what it was, from the dead and musty pages of ancient manuscripts. He understood enough of what the black had said to get his meaning, but he recognized the tongue as a hybrid of Latin and Bantu root words, though the inflections appeared to be uniformly those of the Latin language. In his student days von Harben had often imagined himself a citizen of Rome. He had delivered orations in the Forum and had addressed his troops in the field in Africa and in Gaul, but how different it all seemed now when he was faced with the actuality rather than the figment of imagination. His voice sounded strange in his own ears and his words came haltingly as he spoke to the tall black in the language of the Caesars. "We are not enemies," he said. "We have come as friends to visit your country," and then he waited, scarce believing that the man could understand him. "Are you a citizen of Rome?" demanded the black. "No, but my country is at peace with Rome," replied von Harben. The black looked puzzled as though he did not understand the reply. "You are from Castra Sanguinarius." His words carried the suggestion of a challenge. "I am from Germania," replied von Harben. "I never heard of such a country. You are a citizen of Rome from Castra Sanguinarius." "Take me to your chief," said von Harben. "That is what I intend to do. Get in here. Our masters will know what to do with you." Von Harben and Gabula climbed into the dugout, so awkwardly that they almost overturned it, much to the disgust of the black warriors, who seized hold of them none too gently and forced them to squat in the bottom of the frail craft. This was now turned about and paddled along a winding canal, bordered on either side by tufted papyrus rising ten to fifteen feet above the surface of the water. "To what tribe do you belong?" asked von Harben, addressing the leader of the blacks. "We are barbarians of the Mare Orientis, subjects of Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East; but why do you ask such questions? You know these things as well as I." A half hour of steady paddling along winding water-lanes brought them to a collection of beehive huts built upon the floating roots of the papyrus, from which the tall plants had been cleared just sufficiently to make room for the half dozen huts that constituted the village. Here von Harben and Gabula became the center of a curious and excited company of men, women, and children, and von Harben heard himself and Gabula described by their captors as spies from Castra Sanguinarius and learned that on the morrow they were to be taken to Castrum Mare, which he decided must be the village of the mysterious "masters" to whom his captors were continually alluding. The blacks did not treat them unkindly, though they evidently considered them as enemies.