She started down the hill. Nearer at hand she saw that the man was a slave, rough bearded and clad in an old slave cloak. Her adventure with the cruel woman of the morning came back to her. A slave might hail from any barbaric coast. Wild deeds, wild, unthinkable crimes were committed by slaves. Theria stopped in fear but at that moment the slave saw her. His arms dropped to his sides, he gazed at her wide-eyed, terrible—then suddenly pathetic. “Forethoughtful One,” he faltered, “hast thou come to punish or to save?” What did the man mean? The “Forethoughtful One” could be none other than Athena herself. Theria laughed outright. “Surely you do not think I am the goddess?” she queried. The mistake was not unnatural—Theria, slender amid the slender trees, the light behind her, and all in the Athena Precinct. However, the man looked a little ashamed. “Forgive me, Despoina, my lady. I am beside myself, I—you startled me.” He was still wondering at her. “You are a priestess?” “You can see I am not,” she answered, businesslike. “You are ill. I thought I might help you.” Again he wondered at her. Then his face changed back to its misery. “I am not ill, Despoina, not bodily ill. My courage is gone! The gods know how I shall ever pick it up again.” “What took your courage?” He began to pace again. “A slave’s tale; a miserable slave’s tale. Why should you hear it? Oh, Mistress, you can do nothing, nothing.” Yet he burst out with the telling. “My freedom money. It is gone! Gone, I tell you. My damned master knew all the while where it was hid. He let me work and hope and hoard it. And now when all but two drachmæ are there”—he held out his hand with these last coins—“he came and seized it. The beast! How can the just gods let such a man walk the earth?” Theria came nearer, interested, absorbed. “You mean that you earned the money to buy your freedom?” “Yes, Despoina—to buy it from Apollo.” He was referring to one of the noblest customs of the Oracle. Both of them knew it well. A slave might sometimes be so fortunate as to get money to buy himself from his master. But the Greek master could seize him again and once caught, the slave had no redress. But Apollo of Delphi would buy slaves. They could come to his temple and pay the money down to the god. The terms of the transaction were engraved on the stones of the temple foundation for all men to see. Then the slave went free, protected by this divine ownership. No former master would dare touch him. Wherever the former slave might go, he was under divine protection, Apollo’s ward. “How long did it take you to earn the money?” she asked. “Four years, Mistress. Oh, gods! four long years. I cannot do it again, and, if I did, would not my master seize it as before?” “How did you earn it?” “My work is in the pottery, lady—the pottery there below the hill toward Kirrha.” He showed her his hands marred with the clay. “It is I who make the best pictures on the pots.”