Nikander, in spite of urgent business with the priests, spent hour upon hour beside his daughter. Sometimes he himself wondered at his strength of love for a mere girl. He sat dreaming over her, learning her with a new intimate vision which led him farther every hour.
Often and again as he looked across to where Melantho sat he would say:
“Wife, we have not understood this little one of ours, and now it is too late.”
And Melantho would come around the couch and timidly kiss her husband’s forehead.
Nikander, after his first keen gratitude to Eëtíon, was too beaten about by the winds of fate to think of him. Eëtíon, however, came every day. He was very shy, very guarded in his inquiries after the Delphic priestess. His friendship for Dryas and Dryas’s devotion to him were ample excuse for his coming.
Then on the fourth day of Theria’s illness Delphi rocked with news as at times it rocked with actual earthquakes. The heralds from the north came running, crying the news with spent voices:
“Thermopylæ is taken! Thermopylæ is taken by the Persians!”
Then after they took breath again from their long run—
“The Spartans are beaten back. The noble three hundred are killed every man. Leonidas is killed. All, all is lost. The Persians stole through over the mountain and attacked us from the rear. Thus they took the pass. They are free in Hellas now to do their will upon you. Yes, they are marching hither. They are already in the land of Daulis. They are not forty miles away.”
The trembling Delphians were mute with horror.