“Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered with wide eyes. At last she was to know the truth. “Yet this is the fate you tell me Argos prefers. I suppose,” he added whimsically, “you know all about the Council at the Isthmos of Corinth, from which I have just come.” “No, nothing of that.” “Then I will tell you. Athens, Sparta, and all the lesser states who want to defend our Hellas have sent representatives to this congress. They are making our plan of defence. They have sent envoys to all the doubtful states of Greece, begging them to join in the fight. Now, here, my child, is my grief and should be yours—these states, Argos, Crete, and others sent at once to our Pythia to ask whether or not they should enter the war. And in every case the oracles have been negative. It has been so when there was no need. “You know, my child, that oracles are not always clear! Just as prayers to the gods are not always answered. And when the oracles are not clear, surely it is because the Son of Leto wishes us to use our own wisdom in the interpretation thereof. “These oracles to Argos and Crete came forth in confused utterance and could have been interpreted into splendid words of courage to those states. We could have _forced_ them to join the League.” Nikander’s voice began to ring with his message. He forgot it was only to his daughter, Theria, that he was speaking. She meanwhile thrilled and quivered with the sudden enlightenment. Yesterday she had been for the moment persuaded by Lycophron. But this from her father was the truth, so clear that she ought to have known it without any telling. Nikander went on: “But all the priests were for bending the oracles the other way. They fashioned them into drivelling nonsense, only adding enough of sense to warn the states away, to make them afraid to fight. “Oh, that our Delphi should come to this. “The priests themselves are scared. Many of them have visited Persia and remember its vast power. I, too, have visited it. What of it? Cannot they see that in a pass like this the gods will fight on our side? “But among all the priests, only Timon and I are for the nobler part. I am not accustomed to failure. I do not know how to bear it.” His head bowed, but it lifted again quickly. “But we have not failed yet, Timon and I. There are yet Athens and Sparta for us to help.” Suddenly he seemed aware of his daughter. He took her hand. “Athens and Sparta prefer death to the Persian rule. They are going to fight the Persian though he be twenty times their number. Do you see nothing fine in that, my child?” Her wide-open eyes answered him. “Up till now the Oracle has disheartened them both. It shall not dishearten them again. Athens and Sparta will certainly visit the Oracle once more. If I have to die in giving them the message of the god, that is a small matter. The message shall be given.” Theria moved toward him in awed, shining acquiescence.