THE SHATTERED CUP
Bitterness and confusion were Theria’s portion when she reached home.
Melantho was ill from anxiety and stormed alternately at Theria for her
misdeed and at poor Baltè for not taking better care of her. Dryas was
very superior and very wrathful. The slaves whisked hither and yon, some
delighted with the fuss, others scared as to which way the storm might
strike. Lycophron treated everything with amused scorn, whether of Theria
or her tormentors could not be told. Nikander was away.
“But the whipping he’ll give you when he comes,” declared Melantho, “will
make that other whipping seem a caress.”
Theria waited in a dumb terror. Not of the whipping, but of her own
reaction to it. She would fight back. Oh, the disgrace of that! Deeper
than all was the fear of losing the last of her father’s love.
She had been sent to her room and poor Baltè watched her like a Cerberus.
No chance to be throwing jewels from windows even if Theria had thought
of it. As a matter of fact, she forgot it utterly.
It was next morning before she met her father.
His face was darker than she had ever seen it. He seemed to look at her
strangely and from a great distance.
“Oh, yes, Theria,” he said, putting his hand to his head. “I am in too
great anxiety to care whether you are punished or not.”
“Father,” she exclaimed, instantly concerned for him alone. “What—what
has happened to you?”
“The Medes are at our door, child,” he strainedly answered. “And at
present I see no one who is going to resist them.”
She laid hand upon his arm, but he hurried away out of the house.
All that day Theria was in disgrace. Her mother set her an extra long
task of weaving and with extra severity made her ravel out all her
mistakes.
These were many. Theria could think of nothing but her father’s worried
words: “The Medes are at our door.” The phrase rang over and over again
in her ears. The Medes were the Persians. Did Father mean that the Medes
were in Phokis—or on Mount Parnassos itself? How soon would they fall
upon Delphi? Oh, if she could only question her mother. But her mother
would know nothing about it.
In the midst of her worry her promise to the slave concerning the jewels
flashed across her mind. “But it was last night I was to give him the
jewels, last night, poor slave. He must have come—and gone away again.
Will he come to-night? Oh, surely he will.”
She went immediately to her room and took from her jewel box a necklace.
It was of pearls strung upon horsehair. A mother-of-pearl amulet depended
from it. This she tried to remove, for it was characteristic, easily
identified. But a sound along the corridor made her swiftly hide the
necklace and all in her bosom. Moments alone were rare to-day. She must
have the jewels ready. Of course the adventure pleased her. She was young
and she was—Theria!
After the family had dispersed from the last meal of the day she sped
away to the back storeroom. There at the window she waited. Never had
so many steps sounded in the house, coming near the door, passing and
repassing; never had the lane reëchoed so loudly the footsteps from
the highway. Again and again she thought people must be entering the
lane itself. Once Nerea came into the storeroom to fetch wheat for the
kitchen. But it was by no means unusual to find the little mistress
sitting at that window, and Nerea went innocently away.
Down in the lane the shadows crept closer. Deep twilight now. There
among the jagged rocks at the lane’s end was a denser shadow. Suddenly
bird-swift the shadow darted forward and stopped under her window. She
leaned out.
“Hist! is it you, slave?”
The bearded face uplifted itself, the hands as well. She could see this
in the dimness.
“Oh, marvel of kindness,” came the low voice, “I knew you could not fail.”
“But I forgot yesterday. Hold your hands up close together. Careful, now.”
She dropped the pearls and he caught them easily. But he stood still in
his place.
“They did not whip you yesterday, Despoina? Tell me they did not,” he
whispered.
“Of course not, Fool! Go quickly, you will be caught. Go!”
He flung his hands upward again. Poor creature, the gesture was a very
speech of gratitude. Then he slipped back to the enfolding rocks.
Theria suddenly recalled how once she had found a bird in the court and
had taken it to this window to set it free. Even so had it flung itself
off and was gone. Her fancy pictured the slave hiding for the night
among the rocks; then, at break of day, hurrying down to the Precinct
to purchase freedom from the god. Ah, by to-morrow he would be miles
and miles away. He would not wait for the jewels to be questioned. That
problem would be hers.
She went off to bed singing softly a little tune.
Next afternoon Olen, her father’s slave, came into Theria’s room. He
seemed furtive in his errand.
“I was to give you this,” he said, and handed her a small two-handled
bowl. He was for hurrying out, but Theria stopped him.
“What is this, Olen?” she asked.
“You know best, Mistress,” he said, hiding a smile.
It was a shallow bowl, one of those made in the pottery below the
hill. Within the bowl was a delicate figure of the goddess “Athena” so
the letters said above the figure. She was bestowing something upon a
supplicant who stood before her.
“Who gave you this bowl, Olen?” asked Theria, puzzled.
“A man, Mistress, a sorry-looking slave with clay matted in his hair.”
Theria turned the bowl about. On the under side was an unburned painting
of a youth standing tip-toe with arms outstretched as if to fly. The
drawing was exquisite, but exquisite drawings were common in Greece.
Above the youth was scrawled:
Eleutheria gives freedom.
Theria blushed slowly, angrily red. She held forth the bowl and broke it
to shards against the house wall.
“Olen,” she said sternly, “never bring me messages. Never bring me
gifts.”