“Hannibal is treating for your exchange now,” Flavia said.  “There are difficulties in the way, for, as you know, the senate have refused to allow its citizens who surrender to be ransomed or exchanged; but the friends of the praetor Publius are powerful and are bringing all their influence to bear to obtain the exchange of their kinsman, whom Hannibal has offered for you.  I will gladly use what influence I and my family possess to aid them.  I knew when you came to me that, as a prisoner of war, it was likely that you might be exchanged.”

“You have been very kind, my Lady Flavia,” Malchus said, “and I esteem myself most fortunate in having fallen into such hands.  Since you know now how it is with me and Clotilde, I can ask you at once to let me ransom her of you.  Any sum that you like to name I will bind myself, on my return to the Carthaginian camp, to pay for her.”

“I will think it over,” Flavia said graciously.  “Clotilde is useful to me, but I can dispense with her services, and will ask you no exorbitant amount for her.  If the negotiations for your exchange come to aught, you may rely upon it that she shall go hence with you.”

With an expression of deep gratitude Malchus retired.  Flavia, in thus acceding to the wishes of Malchus, was influenced by several motives.  She was sincerely shocked at Julia’s conduct, and was most desirous of getting both Malchus and Clotilde away, for she knew that her daughter was headstrong as she was passionate, and the presence of Clotilde in the house would, even were Malchus absent, be a source of strife and bitterness between herself and her daughter.

In the second place, it would be a pretty story to tell her friends, and she should be able to take credit to herself for her magnanimity in parting with her favourite attendant.  Lastly, in the present state of affairs it might possibly happen that it would be of no slight advantage to have a friend possessed of great power and influence in the Carthaginian camp.  Her husband might be captured in fight —­ it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that Rome itself might fall into the hands of the Carthaginians.  It was, therefore, well worth while making a friend of a man who was a near relation of Hannibal.

For some days Julia kept her own apartment.  All the household knew that something had gone wrong, though none were aware of the cause.  A general feeling of uneasiness existed, for Julia had from a child in her fits of temper been harsh with her slaves, venting her temper by cruelly beating and pinching them.  Many a slave had been flogged by her orders at such a time, for her mother, although herself an easy mistress, seldom interfered with her caprices, and all that she did was good in the eyes of her father.

At the end of the week Flavia told Malchus that the negotiations for his release had been broken off, the Roman senate remaining inflexible in the resolve that Romans who surrendered to the enemy should not be exchanged.  Malchus was much disappointed, as it had seemed that the time of his release was near; however, he had still his former plan of escape to fall back upon.