“I will not ask you again, Father, to make me Pythia, but if I can help you that way or any way, you will let me—you will let me?”
“Persistent Theria! You cannot help me by being Pythia. How many times must I tell you that the Pythia is the empty mouthpiece of the god.”
“Yes, Father,” she consented.
“You can help me,” he said, “by keeping up the courage of the household. Do not let the slaves talk. Don’t let your mother cringe and worry. Most of all, do not be surprised at anything. I’ll tell you now the fullness of it. The Persians will come to Delphi. No amount of treating will keep their greedy hands off this rich spoil. Our streets will know their footsteps, our temples and households their desecration.
“They are a great horde. All the armies of the past taken together will not make the sum of them. Yet we must fight them. There is no other choice, my child. Can you keep a brave heart and stiff will?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes.”
She went back to her room exalted and actually refreshed. The danger was so great, so certain, that it bred not fear but only a deep solemnity.
Nikander, however, walking out into the street, was not encouraged by this conversation, but miserably cast down.
He had received sympathy; but not from his sons had he received it. The fullness of Theria’s understanding but made him feel the more keenly their aloofness. This poor child, a daughter! wanted to help him by becoming the Pythia—futile effort! Yet the only one open to her. His sons, had they desired, might have been already in the priesthood, fighting by his side for this—the greatest cause the Oracle had ever known.