“I had forgotten,” she whispered. “Oh, Father, I want to go home—home!”
Nikander answered nothing. He could not answer. He led her over to a corner.
“Oh,” she moaned, “that I should have begged to be priestess. How foolish, witless——”
“I was the fool to allow you. But remember, Daughter, always remember the deed which priesthood let you do. Your Prayer to the Winds was answered, abundantly answered. You helped to save the fleet, my darling. And you did it thinking you must die for doing it.”
His praise took her by surprise, but it only made it more impossible to part from him.
She stole into his arms like a frightened child. He dared not tell her the hope he had for her. It was too faint a hope for that. He knew well that his best comforting was to remind her of what her priesthood had accomplished.
“Your Salamis oracle. We have yet to hear from that. The battle must even now be raging at Athens. They tell me that never would Themistokles have kept the Athenians to their task but for that oracle to hearten them. You gave the oracle as being your own, but you know now it was the god’s.”
She was trembling with the sobs she must keep still.
“And, Daughter, never go to the tripod again,” he urged. “Promise me that.”
“Never, never the tripod,” she answered.