Malchus felt round the walls of his cell and found that it was about six feet square.  In one corner was a bundle of straw, and, spreading this out, he threw himself upon it and bitterly meditated over the position into which he had fallen.  His own situation was desperate enough.  He was helpless in the hands of Hanno.  The friends and partisans of Hannibal were ignorant of his coming, and he could hope for no help from them.  He had little doubt as to what his fate would be; he would be put to death in some cruel way, and Hannibal, his relatives, and friends would never know what had become of him from the moment when he left the Italian vessel in the port of Corinth.

But hopeless as was his own situation, Malchus thought more of Hannibal and his brave companions in arms than of himself.  The manner in which he had been kidnapped by the agents of Hanno, showed how determined was that demagogue to prevent the true state of things which prevailed in Italy from becoming known to the people of Carthage.  In order to secure their own triumph, he and his party were willing to sacrifice Hannibal and his army, and to involve Carthage in the most terrible disasters.

At last Malchus slept.  When he awoke a faint light was streaming down into his cell.  In the centre of the room was an opening of about a foot square, above which a sort of chimney extended twenty feet up through the solid rock to the surface, where it was covered with an iron grating.  Malchus knew where he was.  Along each side of the great temple extended a row of these gratings level with the floor, and every citizen knew that it was through these apertures that light and air reached the prisoners in the cells below.  Sometimes groans and cries were heard to rise, but those who were near would hurry from the spot, for they knew that the spies of the law were ever on the watch, and that to be suspected of entering into communication with the prisoners would be sufficient to ensure condemnation and death.

It was the sight of these gratings, and the thought of the dismal cells below, which had increased the aversion which Malchus had felt as a boy to enter the bloodstained temple, little as he had dreamed that the day would come when he himself would be lying a prisoner in one of them.  He knew that it was useless for him to attempt by shouting to inform his friends in the city of his presence there.  The narrowness of the air passage and the closeness of the grating above deadened and confused the voice, unless to a person standing immediately above the opening, and as the visitors to the temple carefully avoided the vicinity of the gratings, it would be but a waste of breath to attempt to call their attention.

As to escape it was out of the question.  The cell was cut in the solid rock.  The door was of enormous strength, and even could that have been overcome, there were many others which would have to be passed before he could arrive at the entrance to the dungeon.