CHAPTER XXII
IN THE PYTHIA HOUSE
The old house-mistress received them; a stubby little person, most proper and severe, who fixed her eyes upon Theria intently and disapprovingly. As she let them in, a curious suffering sound came from a farther room.
“It’s Aristonikè, the Pythia,” vouchsafed the mistress. “She has been like that ever since her last oracle—the one to the Athenians. She stands it worse and worse, poor child. It’s good we’re getting another to help her.”
Again she looked Theria up and down.
“Your slave woman can come with me,” she said, referring to Baltè. “Wait you for me there.”
She was one of those old servants whose trustiness and efficiency are so great as hardly to be borne by those who employ them.
Nikander and Theria were left in the little room, unknowing for how long. Beyond the corridor the poor little Pythoness kept up her incessant moaning.
It did not frighten Theria. From her stronghold of perfect health she could not think of herself as being thus laid low, but it filled Nikander with horror. He was glad when Theria began to speak.
“Father, the Athenians look so bitterly anxious. Is their task the hardest of all? Harder than that of the Spartans?”