The man searched and went away. An hour or so afterwards he reappeared, this time with a guard of four soldiers. He had instructions, he said, to arrest Cleanor, son of Lysis, an officer of the guards of the south-west wall.
Cleanor surrendered himself without a word, and was at once marched to head-quarters. On his arrival he was handcuffed. Hasdrubal, who had never possessed much personal courage, was accustomed to take this precaution when any prisoner was brought into his presence.
"I have it on good authority," said the general, when Cleanor stood before him, "that you had a Roman prisoner in your hands on the night of the day before last. Why did you not deliver him up at once to the proper authorities?"
"Because he was ill. If this was irregular, I acknowledge my fault."
"Let that pass, then. Where is he now? How was it you suffered him to escape?"
"I did not suffer him to escape; I took care that he should escape."
"What!" cried the general in a furious voice—so far he had succeeded in keeping calm—"what! you deliberately let him go! This is sheer treason! What have you to say?"
"I could not let him be dealt with as the others were dealt with. To have given him up after that would have been a crime."
"What audacity! Who are you, paltry Greek that you are, to make yourself a ruler and a judge in Carthage? That is enough. It is your life for his life. Take him away!" he roared to the guards who had the prisoner in their charge.
Cleanor was taken back to the guard-room, and shortly afterwards transferred from that to a cell in the basement of the house, a squalid, stifling, ill-smelling place, dimly lighted by a strongly-barred aperture in the roof. Here he spent five days. Every morning his jailer opened the door just long enough to put within it a loaf of coarse rye-bread and a flagon of doubtful-looking water. He saw and heard nothing more during the day.