Here some of the party had been set to work, others had been employed in pushing on the little galleries, and there had sat for hours working in a cramped position, with pick, hammer, and wedge.  Others had been lowered by ropes down shafts so narrow that when they got to the bottom it was only with extreme difficulty that they were able to stoop to work at the rock beneath their feet.  Many, indeed, of these old shafts have been found in the mines of Montepone, so extremely narrow that it is supposed that they must have been bored by slaves lowered by ropes, head foremost, it appearing absolutely impossible for a man to stoop to work if lowered in the ordinary way.

The Carthaginians, altogether unaccustomed to work of this nature, returned to their huts at night utterly exhausted, cramped, and aching in every limb.  Many had been cruelly beaten for not performing the tasks assigned to them.  All were filled with a dull despairing rage.  In the evening a ration of boiled beans, with a little native wine, was served out to each, the quantity of the food being ample, it being necessary to feed the slaves well to enable them to support their fatigues.

After three days of this work five or six of the captives were so exhausted that they were unable to take their places with the gang when ordered for work in the morning.  They were, however, compelled by blows to rise and take their places with the rest.  Two of them died during the course of the day in their stifling working places; another succumbed during the night; several, too, were attacked by the fever of the country.  Malchus and his friends were full of grief and rage at the sufferings of their men.

“Anything were better than this,” Malchus said.  “A thousand times better to fall beneath the swords of the Romans than to die like dogs in the holes beneath that hill!”

“I quite agree with you, Malchus,” Halco, the other officer with the party, said, “and am ready to join you in any plan of escape, however desperate.”

“The difficulty is about arms,” Trebon observed.  “We are so closely watched that it is out of the question to hope that we should succeed in getting possession of any.  The tools are all left in the mines; and as the men work naked, there is no possibility of their secreting any.  The stores here are always guarded by a sentry; and although we might overpower him, the guard would arrive long before we could break through the solid doors.  Of course if we could get the other slaves to join us, we might crush the guard even with stones.”

“That is out of the question,” Malchus said.  “In the first place, they speak a strange language, quite different to the Italians.  Then, were we seen trying to converse with any of them, suspicions might be roused; and even could we get the majority to join us, there would be many who would be only too glad to purchase their own freedom by betraying the plot to the Romans.  No, whatever we do must be done by ourselves alone; and for arms we must rely upon stones, and upon the stoutest stakes we can draw out from our huts.  The only time that we have free to ourselves is the hour after work is over, when we are allowed to go down to the stream to wash and to stroll about as we will until the trumpet sounds to order us to retire to our huts for the night.