EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS
to be questioned, but, turning to the Bagego interpreter, said: “Ask Sublatus why I have been made a prisoner and tell him that I demand that he free me at once.”
The black quailed. “Do as I tell you,” said Tarzan.
“What is he saying?” asked Sublatus of the interpreter.
“I fear to repeat such words to the Emperor,” replied the black.
“I command it,” said Sublatus.
“He asked why he has been made a prisoner and demands that he be released at once.”
“Ask him who he is,” said Sublatus, angrily, “that he dares issue commands to Sublatus Imperator.”
“Tell him,” said Tarzan, after the Emperor's words had been translated to him, “that I am Tarzan of the Apes, but if that means as little to him as his name means to me, I have other means to convince him that I am as accustomed to issuing orders and being obeyed as is he.”
“Take the insolent dog away,” replied Sublatus with trembling voice after he had been told what Tarzan’s words had been.
The soldiers laid hold of Tarzan, but he shook them off. “Tell him,” snapped the ape-man, “that as one white man to another I demand an answer to my question. Tell him that I did not approach his country as an enemy, but as a friend, and that I shall look to him to see that I am accorded the treatment to which I am entitled, and that before I leave this room.”
When these words were translated to Sublatus, the purple of his enraged face matched the imperial purple of his cloak.
“Take him away,” he strieked. “Take him away. Call the guard. Throw Maximus Praeclarus into chains for permitting a prisoner to thus address Sublatus.”
Two soldiers seized Tarzan, one his right arm, the other his left, but he swung them suddenly together before him and with such force did their heads meet that they relaxed their grasps upon him and sank unconscious to the floor, and then it was that the ape-man leaped with the agility of a cat to the dais where sat the Emperor, Sublatus.
So quickly had the act been accomplished and so un-
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