captured by Numidians

"How did the Numidians capture it, then?" Vonones demanded

"Capture? Maybe they took its surrender! A band of mounted archers on a thousand miles of empty plains- they could have run it down and killed it easily, and that damned thing knew it!. Then they welded it into an iron cage, and strong as it is, the lizard-ape can't snap iron bars"

"But it can pick locks," Vonones finished his thought.
-Killer pg. 25