"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 black, 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 black, "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 blacks of the city as well as the blacks of the outer villages hate Caesar," said Mpingu, who had been brought to the dungeon with Tarzan. The statements of the blacks furnished food for thought to Tarzan. He knew that in the city there must be hundreds and perhaps thousands of black slaves and many thousands of blacks 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 blacks 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 of 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."