"Where is this Castrum Mare and what is it?" asked Tarzan.
The officer laughed. "You are very clever," he said.
"I assure you," said the ape-man, "that I am not trying to deceive you. Believe me for a moment and answer one question."
"What is it you wish to ask?"
"Has another white man come into your country within the last few weeks? He is the one for whom I am searching."
"No white man has entered this country," replied the officer, "since Marcus Crispus Sanguinarius led the Third Cohort of the Tenth Legion in victorious conquest of the barbarians who inhabited it eighteen hundred and twenty-three years ago."
"And if a stranger were in your country you would know it?" asked Tarzan.
"If he were in Castra Sanguinarius, yes," replied the officer, "but if he had entered Castrum Mare at the east end of the valley I should not know it; but come, I was not sent here to answer questions, but to fetch you before one who will ask them."
At a word from the officer, the soldiers who accompanied him conducted Tarzan from the dungeon, along the corridor through which he had come the previous day and up into the city. The detachment proceeded for a mile through the city streets to an imposing building, before the entrance to which there was stationed a military guard whose elaborate cuirasses, helmets, and crests suggested that they might be a part of a select military organization.
The metal plates of their cuirasses appeared to Tarzan to be of gold, as did the metal of their helmets, while the hilts and scabbards of their swords were elaborately carved and further ornamented with colored stones ingeniously inlaid in the metal, and to their gorgeous appearance was added the final touch of scarlet cloaks.