Metellus shook his head. "Septimus Favonius is no fool," he said. "I doubt if there is anyone in Castra Sanguinarius sufficiently clever to fool him to such an extent." "There is only one man who has any right to judge as to that," snapped Fupus, "and he is going to have the facts before I am an hour older." "Whom do you mean?" asked Metellus. "Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East--I am going to him at once." "Don't be a fool, Fupus," counseled Metellus. "You will only get yourself laughed at or possibly worse. Know you not that Septimus Favonius is high in favor of the Emperor?" "Perhaps, but is it not also known that he was friendly with Cassius Hasta, nephew of the Emperor, whom Validus Augustus accused of treason and banished. It would not take much to convince the Emperor that this Erich von Harben is an emissary of Cassius Hasta, who is reputed to be in Castra Sanguinarius." Caecilius Metellus laughed. "Go on then and make a fool of yourself, Fupus," he said. "You will probably bring up at the end of a rope." "The end of a rope will terminate this business," agreed Fupus, "but von Harben will be there, not I." _Chapter Nine_ As night fell upon the city of Castra Sanguinarius, the gloom of the granite dungeons beneath the city's Colosseum deepened into blackest darkness, which was relieved only by a rectangular patch of starlit sky where barred windows pierced the walls. Squatting upon the rough stone floor, his back against the wall, Tarzan watched the stars moving in slow procession across the window's opening. A creature of the wild, impatient of restraint, the ape-man suffered the mental anguish of the caged beast--perhaps, because of his human mind, his suffering was greater than would have been that of one of the lower orders, yet he endured with even greater outward stoicism than the beast that paces to and fro seeking escape from the bars that confine it. As the feet of the beast might have measured the walls of its dungeon, so did the mind of Tarzan, and never for a waking moment was his mind not occupied by thoughts of escape. Lukedi and the other inmates of the dungeon slept, but Tarzan still sat watching the free stars and envying them, when he became conscious of a sound, ever so slight, coming from the arena, the floor of which was about on a level with the sill of the little window in the top of the dungeon wall. Something was moving, stealthily and cautiously, upon the sand of the arena. Presently, framed in the window, silhouetted against the sky, appeared a familiar figure. Tarzan smiled and whispered a word so low that a human ear could scarce have heard it, and Nkima slipped between the bars and dropped to the floor of the dungeon. An instant later the little monkey snuggled close to Tarzan, its long, muscular arms clasped tightly about the neck of the ape-man. "Come home with me," pleaded Nkima. "Why do you stay in this cold, dark hole beneath the ground?"