Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction; Tarzan (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
As the morning dragged on the crowd became restless. At first, as some
patrician who was to have a part in the pageant passed in his ornate
litter he would be viewed in respectful and interested silence, or
if he were well known and favorably thought of by the multitude he
might be greeted with cheers; but with the passing of time and the
increasing heat of the day each occasional litter that passed elicited
deep-throated groans or raucous catcalls as the patience and the temper
of the mob became thinner.
But presently from afar, in the direction of the palace, sounded the
martial notes of trumpets. The people forgot their fatigue and their
discomfort as the shrill notes galvanized them into joyous expectancy.
Slowly along the avenue came the pageant, led by a score of trumpeters,
behind whom marched a maniple of the imperial guard. Waving crests
surmounted their burnished helmets, the metal of two hundred cuirasses,
pikes, and shields shot back the sunlight that filtered through the
trees beneath which they marched. They made a proud showing as they
strode haughtily between the lines of admiring eyes, led by their
patrician officers in gold and embossed leather and embroidered linen.
As the legionaries passed, a great shout of applause arose. A roar of
human voices that started at the palace rolled slowly along the Via
Principalis toward the Colosseum as Caesar himself, resplendent in
purple and gold, rode alone in a chariot drawn by lions led on golden
leashes by huge blacks.
Caesar may have expected for himself the plaudits of the populace, but
there was a question as to whether these were elicited as much by the
presence of the Emperor as by the sight of the captives chained to
Caesar's chariot, for Caesar was an old story to the people of Castra
Sanguinarius, while the prisoners were a novelty and, furthermore,
something that promised rare sport in the arena.
Never before in the memory of the citizens of Castra Sanguinarius had
an Emperor exhibited such noteworthy captives in his triumph. There was
Nyuto, the black chief of the Bagegos. There was Caecilius Metellus, a
centurion of the legions of the Emperor of the East; and Cassius Hasta,
the nephew of that Emperor; but perhaps he who aroused their greatest
enthusiasm because of the mad stories that had been narrated of his
feats of strength and agility was the great white barbarian, with a
shock of black hair and his well-worn leopard-skin.
The collar of gold and the golden chain that held him in leash to the
chariot of Caesar, curiously enough, imparted to his appearance no
suggestion of fear or humiliation. He walked proudly with head erect--a
lion tethered to lions--and there was that in the easy sinuosity of
his stride that accentuated his likeness to the jungle beasts that
drew the chariot of Caesar along the broad Via Principalis of Castra
Sanguinarius.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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