TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE
it, since I am detailed to duty at the Colosseum—a mark of the disfavor of Sublatus, since this is the most distasteful duty to which an officer can be assigned.”
“Is it possible that this man for whom I am searching might be in some other part of the valley?” asked Tarzan.
“No,” replied Praeclarus. “There is only one entrance to the valley, that through which you were brought, and while there is another city at the eastern end, he could not reach it without passing through the forests surrounding Castra Sanguinarius, in which event he would have been captured by the barbarians and turned over to Sublatus.”
“Then I shall remain here,” said Tarzan, “for a time.”
“You shall be a welcome guest,” replied Praeclarus.
For three weeks Tarzan remained in the home of Maximus Praeclarus. Festivitas conceived a great liking for the bronzed barbarian, and soon tiring of carrying on conversation with him through an interpreter, she set about teaching him her own language, with the result that it was not long before Tarzan could carry on a conversation in Latin; nor did he lack opportunity to practice his new accomplishment, since Festivitas never tired of hearing stories of the outer world and of the manners and customs of modern civilization.
And while Tarzan of the Apes waited in Castra Sanguinarius for word that von Harben had been seen in the valley, the man he sought was living the life of a young patrician attached to the court of the Emperor of the East, and though much of his time was pleasantly employed in the palace library, yet he chafed at the knowledge that he was virtually a prisoner and was often formulating plans for escape—plans that were sometimes forgotten when he sat beneath the spell of the daughter of Septimus Favonius. And often in the library he discovered only unadulterated pleasure in his work, and thoughts of escape were driven from his mind by discoveries of such gems as original Latin translations of Homer and of hitherto unknown manuscripts of Vergil, Cicero, and Caesar—manuscripts that dated from the days of the young republic and on down the centuries to include one of the early satires of Juvenal.
101
