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EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS

need in return for our manufactured articles. Today we are much richer than the Sanguinarians. We live better. We are more cultured. We are happier and the Sanguinarians are jealous and their hatred of us has increased.”

“Knowing these things,” asked Tarzan, “how is it that you came to the country of your enemies and permitted yourself to be captured?”

“I was delivered over treacherously into the hands of Sublatus by my uncle, Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East,” replied the other. “My name is Cassius Hasta, and my father was Emperor before Validus. Validus is afraid that I may wish to seize the purple, and for this reason he plotted to get rid of me without assuming any responsibility for the act; so he conceived the idea of sending me upon a military mission, after bribing one of the servants who accompanied me to deliver me into the hands of Sublatus.”

“What will Sublatus do with you?” asked Tarzan.

“The same thing that he will do with you,” replied Cassius Hasta. “We shall be exhibited in the triumph of Sublatus, which he holds annually, and then in the arena we shall amuse them until we are slain.”

“And when does this take place?” asked Tarzan

“It will not be long now,” replied Cassius Hasta. “Already they have collected so many black prisoners to exhibit in the triumph and to take part in the combats in the arena that they are forced to confine blacks and whites in the same dungeons, a thing they do not ordinarily do.”

“Are these blacks held here for this purpose?” asked the ape-man.

“Yes,” replied the other.

Tarzan tumed in the direction of Lukedi, whom he could not see in the darkness. “Lukedi!” he called.

“What is it?” asked the black, listlessly.

“You are well?” asked Tarzan.

“I am going to die,” replied Lukedi. “They will feed me to lions or burn me upon a cross or make me fight with other warriors, so that it will be all the same for Lukedi. It was a sad day when Nyuto, the chief, captured Tarzan.”

“Are all these blacks from your village?” asked Tarzan.

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