day, having
assumed his new garments, and having had a light gold ring, as a badge
of servitude, fastened round his neck, Malchus accompanied Flavia and
her daughter on a series of visits to their friends.

The meeting with Clotilde had delighted as much as it had surprised
Malchus. The figure of the Gaulish maiden had been often before his eyes
during his long night watches. When he was with her last he had resolved
that when he next journeyed north he would ask her hand of the chief,
and since his journey to Carthage his thoughts had still more often
reverted to her. The loathing which he now felt for Carthage had
converted what was, when he was staying with Allobrigius, little more
than an idea, into a fixed determination that he would cut himself loose
altogether from corrupt and degenerate Carthage, and settle among the
Gauls. That he should find Clotilde captive in Rome had never entered
his wildest imagination, and he now blessed, as a piece of the greatest
good fortune, the chance, which had thrown him into the hands of the
Romans, and brought him into the very house where Clotilde was a slave.
Had it not been for that he would never again have heard of her. When
he returned to her ruined home he would have found that she had been
carried away by the Roman conquerors, but of her after fate no word
could ever have reached him.

Some weeks passed, but no mode of escape presented itself to his mind.
Occasionally for a few moments he saw Clotilde alone, and they were
often together in Flavia's apartment, for the Roman lady was proud
of showing off to her friends her two slaves, both models of their
respective races.

Julia had at first been cold and hard to Malchus, but gradually her
manner had changed, and she now spoke kindly and condescendingly to him,
and would sometimes sit looking at him from under her dark eyebrows with
an expression which Malchus altogether failed to interpret. Clotilde was
more clear sighted. One day meeting Malchus alone in the atrium she said
to him: "Malchus, do you know that I fear Julia is learning to love you.
I see it in her face, in the glance of her eye, in the softening of that
full mouth of hers."

"You are dreaming, little Clotilde," Malchus said laughing.

"I am not," she said firmly; "I tell you she loves you."

"Impossible!" Malchus said incredulously. "The haughty Julia, the
fairest of the Roman maidens, fall in love with a slave! You are
dreaming, Clotilde."

"But