"I wish that Nyuto would see me and talk with me," said Tarzan of the Apes. "Then he would know that it would be better to have me for a friend than for an enemy. Many men have tried to kill me, many chiefs greater than Nyuto. This is not the first hut in which I have lain a prisoner, nor is it the first time that men have prepared fires to receive me, yet I still live, Lukedi, and many of them are dead. Go, therefore, to Nyuto and advise him to treat me as a friend, for I am not from The Lost Tribe of the Wiramwazi."
"I believe you," said Lukedi, "and I shall go and beg Nyuto to hear me, but I am afraid that he will not."
As the youth reached the doorway of the hut, there suddenly arose a great commotion in the village. Tarzan heard men issuing orders. He heard children crying and the pounding of many naked feet upon the hard ground. Then the war-drums boomed and he heard clashing of weapons upon shields and loud shouting. He saw the guards before the doorway spring to their feet and run to join the other warriors and then Lukedi, at the doorway, shrank back with a cry of terror.
"They come! They come!" he cried, and ran to the far side of the hut where he crouched in terror.
Chapter Six
ERICH VON HARBEN looked into the faces of the tall, almost naked, warriors whose weapons menaced him across the gunwale of their low dugout, and the first thing to attract his attention was the nature of those weapons.
Their spears were unlike any that he had ever seen in the hands of modern savages. Corresponding with the ordinary spear of the African savage, they carried a heavy, and formidable javelin that suggested to the mind of the young archaeologist nothing other than the ancient Roman pike, and this similarity was further confirmed by the appearance of the short, broad, two-edged swords that dangled in scabbards supported by straps passing over the left shoulders of the warriors. If this weapon was not the gladius Hispanus of the Imperial Legionary, von Harben felt that his studies and researches had been for naught.
"Ask them what they want, Gabula," he directed. "Perhaps they will understand you."
"Who are you and what do you want of us?" demanded Gabula in the Bantu dialect of his tribe.
"We wish to be friends," added von Harben in the same dialect. "We have come to visit your country. Take us to your chief."
A tall Negro in the stern of the dugout shook his head. "I do not understand you," he said. "You are our prisoners. We are going to take you with us to our masters. Come, get into the boat. If you resist or make trouble we shall kill you."
"They speak a strange language," said Gabula. "I do not understand them."
Surprise and incredulity were reflected in the expression on von Harben's face, and he experienced such a sensation as one might who looked upon a man suddenly resurrected after having been dead for nearly two thousand years.
Von Harben had been a close student of ancient Rome and its long dead language, but how different was the living tongue, which he heard and which he recognized for what it was, from the dead and musty pages of ancient manuscripts.
He understood enough of what the man had said to get his meaning, but he recognized the tongue as a hybrid of Latin and Bantu root words, though the inflections appeared to be uniformly those of the Latin language.
In his student days von Harben had often imagined himself a citizen of Rome . He had delivered orations in the Forum and had addressed his troops in the field in Africa and in Gaul , but how different it all seemed now when he was faced with the actuality rather than the figment of imagination. His voice sounded strange in his own ears and his words came haltingly as he spoke to the tall man in the language of the Caesars.
"We are not enemies," he said. "We have come as friends to visit your country," and then he waited, scarce believing that the man could understand him.
"Are you a citizen of Rome ?" demanded the warrior.
"No, but my country is at peace with Rome ," replied von Harben.
The man looked puzzled as though he did not understand the reply. "You are from Castra Sanguinarius." His words carried the suggestion of a challenge.
"I am from Germania ," replied von Harben.
"I never heard of such a country. You are a citizen of Rome from Castra Sanguinarius."
"Take me to your chief," said von Harben.
"That is what I intend to do. Get in here. Our masters will know what to do with you."
Von Harben and Gabula climbed into the dugout, so awkwardly that they almost overturned it, much to the disgust of the warriors, who seized hold of them none too gently and forced them to squat in the bottom of the frail craft. This was now turned about and paddled along a winding canal, bordered on either side of tufted papyrus rising ten to fifteen feet above the surface of the water.
"To what tribe do you belong?" asked von Harben, addressing the leader of the warriors.
"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 Negroes 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 him 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 Negroes?" asked von Harben.
"Take them away," ordered the headman, "and confine them safely in a hut. There they may ask one another foolish questions. I do not care to listen to them further."
Von Harben and Gabula were led away by a group of warriors and conducted into one of the small huts of the village. Here they were brought a supper of fish and snails and a dish concocted of the cooked pith of papyrus.
When morning dawned the prisoners were again served with food similar to that which had been given them the previous evening and shortly thereafter they were ordered from the hut.
Upon the water-lane before the village floated half a dozen dugouts filled with warriors. Their faces and bodies were painted as for war and they appeared to have donned all the finery of barbaric necklaces, anklets, bracelets, armbands, and feathers that each could command; even the prows of the canoes bore odd designs in fresh colors.
There were many more warriors than could have been accommodated in the few huts within the small clearing, but, as von Harben learned later, these came from other clearings, several of which comprised the village. Von Harben and Gabula were ordered into the chiefs canoe and a moment later the little fleet pushed off into the water-lane. Strong paddlers propelled the dugouts along the winding waterway in a northeasterly direction.