“Behold it! How swiftly yonder gray cloud comes on a rushing wind! It will cover the brightness. The omen is bad.”
“Why bad, makaira?”
“The cloud is the Persian. He hangs to-day as a thunder-cloud above Athens and Hellas. Xerxes will come. And you—”
She pressed closer to her husband.
“Why speak of me?” he asked lightly.
“Xerxes brings war. War brings sorrow to women. It is not the hateful and old that the spears and the arrows love best.”
Half compelled by the omen, half by a sudden burst of unoccasioned fear, her eyes shone with tears; but her husband’s laugh rang clearly.
“Euge! dry your eyes, and look before you. King Æolus scatters the cloud upon his briskest winds. It breaks into a thousand bits. So shall Themistocles scatter the hordes of Xerxes. The Persian shadow shall come, shall go, and again we shall be happy in beautiful Athens.”
“Athena grant it!” prayed Hermione.
“We can trust the goddess,” returned Glaucon, not to be shaken from his happy mood. “And now that we have paid our vows to her, let us descend. Our friends are already waiting for us by the Pnyx before they go down to the harbours.”