"To what tribe do you belong?" asked von Harben, addressing the leader of the blacks.
"We are barbarians of the Mare Orientis, subjects of Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East; but why do you ask such questions? You know these things as well as I."
A half hour of steady paddling along winding water-lanes brought them to a collection of beehive huts built upon the floating roots of the papyrus, from which the tall plants had been cleared just sufficiently to make room for the half dozen huts that constituted the village. Here von Harben and Gabula became the center of a curious and excited company of men, women, and children, and von Harben heard himself and Gabula described by their captors as spies from Castra Sanguinarius and learned that on the morrow they were to be taken to Castrum Mare, which he decided must be the village of the mysterious "masters" to whom his captors were continually alluding. The blacks did not treat them unkindly, though they evidently considered them as enemies.
When they were interviewed by the headman of the village, von Harben, his curiosity aroused, asked the blacks why they had not been molested if all of his people believed, as they seemed to, that they were enemies.
"You are a citizen of Rome," replied the headman, "and this other is your slave. Our masters do not permit us barbarians to injure a citizen of Rome even though he may be from Castra Sanguinarius, except in self-defense or upon the battlefield in time of war."
"Who are your masters?" demanded von Harben.
"Why, the citizens of Rome who live in Castrum Mare, of course, as one from Castra Sanguinarius well knows."
"But I am not from Castra Sanguinarius," insisted von Harben.
"You may tell that to the officers of Validus Augustus," replied the headman. "Perhaps they will believe you, but it is certain that I do not."
"Are these people who dwell in Castrum Mare black men?" asked von Harben.