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. “But the fleet,” pursued Nikander, “was the fleet also destroyed?” Upon this the heralds had better news to tell. “Oh, the fleet, wonderful! The gods themselves! Never was known such a storm. Three days it lasted, oh, Delphians. Rain, torrents of rain, now in midsummer when we never have rain. Wind! Oh, such wind that it strewed the Persian ships in heaps along the shore—windrows of ships and drowned Persians. But our ships, the Athenians were safe in the Eubœan strait. Not one was lost in the storm and very few by battle. Well said your Oracle: ‘Pray to the winds.’” Nikander, his heart swelling with joy and pride, began to see dimly that miracles can happen in spite of sacrilege and in other than accepted ways. “The Athenians?” he asked. “Are they hopeful?” “Oh, hopeful! Heartened by the god’s help and the storm’s help. Of course the Persian and Ionian ships still outnumber them. But the Athenians say that some god is on their side. They are ready to fight again. They are hastening back to Athenian waters for the fighting.” But Delphi had no such hope. Delphi was all confusion. She had no real army even though she was an independent state. She had only her temple guard. This guard had been sufficient in ordinary times. For all Hellas revered Apollo’s temple. No Hellenic state would dare plunder Apollo’s shrine. But now! Those hordes of barbarians who knew not the god. From these the Delphians well knew what to expect.