Sinking down onto a bench against the wall, I regarded them. They were extraordinary in appearance and expression. All were dressed in ragged and torn costumes of cloth, save for one hulking fellow who wore a tunic of tanned skins. I was surprized to see that all of them carried sword or dagger at their belts, and some big battle-axes. Brown-skinned and white-skinned, with one or two blacks, they were a fierce-faced company, and after scrutinizing me for a second, went on pacing back and forth across the room, for all the world like a den of caged tigers. They spoke little, and glared as they passed one another. While I stared at them, one of their number came up and seated himself beside me. He was a slender, dark-haired young man, dressed in a ragged coat of bottle-green trimmed in silver, with very tight knee-breeches of the same material. Like the rest, he was hatless, and carried at his belt a long, slender rapier. He caught my glance at his garments, and smiled in so winning a fashion that I smiled back, involuntarily. Then a wave of sudden warmth surged through me, for he spoke in English. "Burn me," he drawled, in a soft, languid voice, "I don't blame you for eyeing my clothes, but then, y'see, the tailors here are cursed poor." I leaned toward him, eagerly. "You speak English!" I cried. "Then how did you get here? What is this place, this city? And what are we brought here for?" At my rush of questions he drew back a little, frowning in a puzzled manner. "What are we brought here for?" he repeated. "Why, man, you know as well as I do, why we're here." "Not I!" I said, and his frown deepened, as he doubtfully considered me. "But you're from the pit," he said, "the same as the rest of us," and he waved a hand toward the others in the room. "The pit!" I repeated, puzzled, and he must have seen from my expression that I did not understand him. An odd, calculating light leaped into his eyes. "You are not of the guards," he said, half-musingly, "and you say you are not of the pit. But if you came from outside--" "I was captured," I told him, "outside the city, and brought here. But why?" "You're here to fight," he said, shortly, and I started. "Fight! With whom?" "Why, with these," he answered, indicating again the score of men in the room. "This is--" Before he could finish the sentence, there was a sudden clanging of metal and the door of the room swung open. A guard stepped in and gave brief orders in his own tongue. At once the men around me began to file out of the room, into the corridor. As I passed out, beside my new-found friend, I saw that in the hall a heavy force of the guards awaited us, some fifty men being ranged along its length. We passed together down the corridor's length, but instead of leaving the building by the door I had entered, we turned to the right and proceeded up a long flight of steps, the guards following and preceding us, in two separate companies.