CHAPTER XXXI
NIKANDER’S NEAREST OF KIN
Meanwhile, Nikander and Dryas of the easy confidence came to the temple of Athena Forethought where this time no Theria was to be found. Dryas looked into his father’s grieving face.
“Theria ought to be ashamed of herself,” he said stoutly, “to give you such trouble now.”
“Be silent, Dryas,” said his father sternly. “You know nothing about your sister or her reason for this. Try to find her. Try.”
“Father, I am sorry,” said the wondering Dryas, taking his father’s hand.
“I want you to search now in the slave quarter,” said Nikander hurriedly. “I will go to the Precinct whence I will send messengers to Daulis.”
Wearily Nikander climbed the Precinct hill. His memory was playing him curious tricks. His harsh words, which at first he could in no wise recall, now came back deadly clear, “No place in the Pythia House. No place for you at the home hearth, Bringer of vile tales.” Great Zeus! he had been god maddened, blind! The girl had risked her life and reputation to save her brothers from disgrace.
Theria was always doing the unexpected, poor child, always bringing down wrath upon her own head, and as he now saw it, doing something either interesting or noble. What a Nikander she was, how true in every instinct to her ancient race.
While these thoughts beset him Nikander was hastening from treasury to treasury, hastening through the hidden paths and secret places of the Precinct. Each familiar statue, tripod, each quiet, chapel-like treasury room pierced him with the thought of her intense love of everything in Delphi. Her very deceptions on the tripod had been only from her too great love for Delphi and for Greece.
And her lover; poor little daughter, if he had but kept closer to her in daily life (ah, she had tried so wistfully to keep close to him), she would have told him of this lover long ago.
Why had he not warned his child when he was making her a priestess? He had put her on the perilous seat of the tripod without one thought of her. He had left her aidless and lonely. He was to blame, to blame!
Near the Great Temple Dryas met him again, saying that his search had been fruitless—asking where now to go. Nikander caught his son’s hand convulsively.
“Go nowhere,” he pleaded. “Stay with me.”
But even as he clung to his boy he thought how impossible it would be for Theria to do what Dryas had done. No spies could have dragged her away on such an errand. And oh, dear Paian, she would not have companioned with them at all nor left her father lonely through these terrible days. She would have entered with him into every struggle for Delphi’s honor if her father had only allowed her. How wistful she was when she met him returning from Council. What a sly little puss in her questioning, finding out his problems which he did not mean to tell! Nikander smiled, but in his smiling found himself blinded with tears.
Dryas was sure that it was anxiety for Lycophron which unmanned his father thus.
Long after nightfall the two came home again. The slaves brought supper, and all unwilling they sat down to eat. Then footsteps were heard in the doorway—Eëtíon and the slave with Theria white on her litter.
Nikander ran to her, lifting her in his arms as though she were a child, calling her endearing names, weeping with relief. He laid her on a couch in the aula while they brought the torches.
But one look at Theria’s face and wide-open eyes sobered him.
“Theria, Theria,” he called to her terrible silence.
“Oh, Nikander, don’t you see that she is dying?” cried Eëtíon, brokenhearted.
Nikander rose solemnly to his feet. “She has beheld a god,” he said. “She is yet in the vision.” He turned to Eëtíon. “Has she spoken any word?”
“She called upon Apollo thrice, but since then this silence. Oh, Nikander, what does it mean?”
Nikander bowed his head. Knowing what he knew of Theria’s sacrilege, he fully believed this state to be a doom from Phœbus himself. He believed that she would die. And when he lifted his head, trying to speak, Eëtíon’s anger melted before the anguish in his face.
Nikander as a worshipper of Apollo had recognized at once the mantic ecstasy. He knew also the accepted means of breaking the ecstatic state. He had Baltè bathe Theria in warm water and gently rub her body. He himself brought his lyre and sitting at the bedside played strong, clear music in the Doric mode.
Then fearing that he might have omitted some act, he went out and fetched in the priests to look at her. They gazed, awestruck. “Yes, you are doing all you can,” they said. “The maid is certainly in a vision. But she is far gone toward Hades.”
So Nikander resumed his post. Sitting there, patiently playing, he was the more convinced that she would die. Even his anxiety for Lycophron faded before this unlooked-for sorrow. Nikander’s two sons were only by some physical chance his children. This girl was the child of his mind and heart. She loved what he loved, hated what he hated. She was his nearest of kin. His own! Why had he not known it before?
At last, as Theria’s wide-open eyes half closed, he tried to believe she slept. So he lay down on a couch near at hand while the old slave Baltè watched.
It was full morning when Baltè woke him.
“Karamanor and Agis are in the andron to speak with you.”
These were the young kinsmen whom Nikander had sent in pursuit of Lycophron. Nikander rose and went to hear what he must hear.
The two young men waited solemnly.
“It was midnight, Nikander, when we came up with the spies on the north road,” said young Karamanor gently. “They gave battle so quick that we had just time to fend ourselves even though we so outnumbered them. And Lycophron, even though we called and kept calling to him to come over to our side, that we had only come to save him, Lycophron laughed us to scorn. And, oh, Nikander, he fought splendidly, fiercely, like a wild boar. And so he fell. Two of the spies fell. The rest fled to the hills.”
“He was fearless always,” said Nikander in a low voice.
The young man put his arm pityingly over his uncle’s shoulder. He could not know that just now Nikander felt only relief in the death of his son.
“We took an oath among us, we kinsmen,” said Karamanor. “All of us, an oath not to tell this thing. We will say that he fell in a skirmish with the Persians. Men are too troubled now to think. His absence will not be marked. Our words will be believed, if any of us, after the Persian onslaught, be left alive for beliefs or doubtings. Can we do anything further for you, Nikander?”
“No,” said Nikander quietly. “May the Son of Leto bless you for saving my son’s honour. I must go now and tell his mother.”
Dryas, who had been playing the lyre at Theria’s bedside, had stopped playing when his father withdrew. He sat awestruck, waiting.
Presently Melantho’s death-wail for Lycophron sounded through the house.
“Oh, look, Baltè,” whispered Dryas, through his tears. “Poor Theria does not even hear it.”
Baltè bent over her nurseling. “She hears it well enough,” she answered sadly. “She hears, but she is too far to care.”