Melas was one of those Greeks, a numerous class, who hated women with a curious active hatred which seemed almost bred of fear. They laughed at it all, of course. Why could not babies be found in temples and thus women utterly done away? Wives! what silly, miserable creatures. Hetairai! what undoing of mankind. And behind all the gibing was the curious hating fear. Nikander knew that Melas would not stop short of harming Theria to keep her from being nominated. Keenly Nikander heard the argument. “I’ve followed you, Timon, in most of your proposals,” said another priest, “but now, by the gods, this is too much! But say, old fellow, you _are_ joking, you know you are.” “It seems to me you insult all the able young men of Delphi,” said Glaucos. “What young man have we in Delphi who has seen Apollo face to face?” retorted Timon. “Theria, daughter of Nikander, has been found worthy to behold the god.” “That’s so, that’s so,” assented some. “Go fetch her oracle tablets, let’s see what Apollo said to her,” said one. A messenger was dispatched to the temple. “And not only has she beheld Apollo,” went on Timon. “But she has spoken for him. Think of those two oracles of hers on the tripod. If it had not been for those oracles, where would Delphi be now? On the Persian side! In disgrace! As it is, men are throwing the earlier oracles of Aristonikè in our face. ‘Persian lovers!’ they call us. ‘Medizers, you Delphians.’ And for my part I have naught to answer but Theria’s oracles. That silences ’em. Salamis and the storm of Artemisium! She foretold them both.” “Ay, foretold them,” screamed Melas. “But what had she to do with it? It was the god that spoke through her. She was nothing but his mouthpiece.” “She was more, more I tell you, Melas. She understood those oracles—saw exactly whither they led. She gave them, rejoicing in what they were to accomplish. She——” “One would think,” interrupted Melas, “from what you say, Timon, that she made them up, and that you knew it!” “By Zeus, it seemed that way to me. Even at the time I thought so,” said the young priest, his echo. Ah, they had scented it out! What Nikander had feared—Theria’s strange deception (or was it deception? Nikander himself hardly thought so now). If this question should come up in the Council, what punishment might not fall upon Theria? Who could foresee the end? Not one trace of this terror, however, showed in Nikander’s face. Your true Greek was on his mettle at such time. He spoke with trumpet anger. “I will not have my daughter insulted in the Council! If you cannot discuss her honourably, do not discuss her at all. You all know that her oracle trance on the tripod was so real that it nearly killed her. You all know that Apollo spoke afterward to her in the mountain. And you, and you, and you”—turning to the priests—“saw her after her vision. Was ever any vision condition more patent?” “No, no!” they said. “That vision was true if ever vision was.”