He took the little runner and with a single fierce pressure sent him back into the clay whence he had come.
“Oh, don’t, don’t do that,” cried they all at once, for they loved its loveliness.
“It would perish anyway,” said Eëtíon sadly. “The clay would soon crack.”
CHAPTER XLII
THE UNWILLING COLONIST
On the far-away coast of Sicily, the western outpost of the world, lay the little town of Inessa. One day men came from the neighbouring town Catana, attacked Inessa, and razed it to the ground. This was done while Theria was yet spinning at home, before she was immured in the Pythia House. And this one cruel act, performed by men she had never known, in a town whose name she had never heard, was to affect Theria’s life more profoundly than any act of father, mother, or brother.
It was her fate.
A purposeful intent thus seemed to run through circumstance, deflecting it toward a far-off goal.
Most of Inessa’s inhabitants were killed outright, but among those who were cast upon the world was an awkward youth—one Hyllos, son of Inessa’s most prominent citizen—but an ill-born young man who stammered abominably. This Hyllos being come to the shore of Phokis thought it a good opportunity to visit the Delphic Oracle and inquire for the curing of his speech.
But when Hyllos stood before the tripod the priestess answered not at all concerning his speech, but bade him: