Tarzan and the lost empire

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"I lied," said Mpingu, "but they made me."

"Who made you?" demanded Praeclarus.

"The officers of Caesar and Caesar's son," replied Mpingu. "They dragged me to the palace of the Emperor and held me down upon my back and brought tongs to tear out my tongue and hot irons to burn out my eyes. Oh, master, what else could I do? I am only a poor slave and I was afraid and Caesar is very terrible."

"I understand," said Praeclarus. "I do not blame you, Mpingu."

"They promised to give me my liberty," said the black, "but instead they have chained me in this dungeon. Doubtless I shall die in the arena, but that I do not fear. It was the tongs and the red-hot irons that made me a coward. Nothing else could have forced me to betray the friend of my master."

There was little comfort upon the cold, hard stones of the dungeon floor, but Tarzan, inured to hardship from birth, slept soundly until the coming of the jailer with food awakened him several hours after sunrise. Water and coarse bread were doled out to the inmates of the dungeon by slaves in charge of a surly half-caste in the uniform of a legionary.

As he ate, Tarzan surveyed his fellow prisoners. There was Cassius Hasta of Castrum Mare, son of a Caesar, and Maximus Praeclarus, a patrician of Castra Sanguinarius and captain of legionaries. These, with himself were the only whites. There was Lukedi, the Bagego who had befriended him in the village of Nyuto, and Mpingu, the black slave of Dion Splendidus, who had betrayed him, and now, in the light from the little barred window, he recognized also another Bagego—Ogonyo, who still cast fearful eyes upon Tarzan as one might upon any person who was on familiar terms with the ghost of one's grandfather.

In addition to these three blacks, there were were five strapping warriors from the outer villages of Castra Sanguinarius, picked men chosen because of their superb physiques for the gladiatorial contests that would form so important a part of the games that would shortly take place in the arena for the glorification of Caesar and the edification of the masses. The small room was so crowded that there was barely space upon the floor for the eleven to stretch their bodies, yet there was one vacant ring in the stone wall, indicating that the full capacity of the dungeon had not been reached.

Two days and nights dragged slowly by. The inmates of the cell amused themselves as best they could, though the blacks were too downcast to take a lively interest in anything other than their own sad forbodings.

Tarzan talked much with these and especially with the five warriors from the outer villages. From long experience with them he knew the minds and the hearts of black men, and it was not difficult for him to win their confidence and, presently, he was able to instill within them something of his own courageous self-reliance, which could never accept or admit absolute defeat.