After ascending the sea coast the troop skirted the northern slopes of the Apennines, passing close to the battlefield of Trebia, and crossing the Po by a ford, ascended the banks of the Orcus, and reached Clotilde’s native village.  A few ruins alone marked where it had stood.  Malchus halted there and despatched scouts far up the valley.  These succeeded in finding a native, who informed them that Brunilda with the remains of the tribe were living in the forests far up on the slopes.  The scouts delivered to them the message with which they were charged:  that Clotilde and Malchus, with a Carthaginian force, were at Orca.  The following evening Brunilda and her followers came into camp.

Deep was the joy of the mother and daughter.  The former had long since given up all hope of ever hearing of Clotilde again, and had devoted her life to vengeance on the Romans.  From her fastness in the mountain she had from time to time led her followers down, and carried fire and sword over the fields and plantations of the Roman colonists, retiring rapidly before the garrisons could sally from the towns and fall upon her.  She was rejoiced to find that her child had found a husband and protector in the young Carthaginian, still more rejoiced when she found that the latter had determined upon throwing in his lot with the Gauls.

All that night mother and daughter sat talking over the events which had happened since they parted.  Brunilda could give Malchus but little encouragement for the mission on which he had come.  The legion of Postumius had indeed been defeated and nearly destroyed in a rising which had taken place early in the spring; but fresh troops had arrived, dissensions had, as usual, broken out among the chiefs, many of them had again submitted to the Romans, and the rest had been defeated and crushed.  Brunilda thought that there was little hope at present of their again taking up arms.

For some weeks Malchus attempted to carry out Hannibal’s instructions; he and his lieutenants, accompanied by small parties of horse, rode through the country and visited all the chiefs of Cisalpine Gaul, but the spirit of the people was broken.  The successes they had gained had never been more than partial, the Roman garrison towns had always defied all their efforts, and sooner or later the Roman legions swept down across the Apennines and carried all before them.

In vain Malchus told them of the victories that Hannibal had won, that Southern Italy was in his hands, and the Roman dominion tottering.  In reply they pointed to the garrisons and the legion, and said that, were Rome in a sore strait, she would recall her legion for her own defence, and no arguments that Malchus could use could move them to lay aside their own differences and to unite in another effort for freedom.  Winter was now at hand.  Malchus remained in the mountains with the Orcans until spring came, and then renewed his efforts with no greater success than before.  Then he dismissed the Carthaginians, with a letter giving Hannibal an account of all he had done, and bade them find their way back to Capua by the road by which they had come.