"Go ahead, Jim," said Jordan. "Thet sounds as it useter when yo' read to us in ther old house thar in Texas. What war thet book that told all 'bout Lissis and Ajax, the hoss-tamer Diamed, and the boss fighters, Killes and Hector, and ther pretty gal Helen, that raised all the hel-lo, and Dromine, the squar woman thet war Hector's wife, and hed the kid thet war afeerd of the old man's headgear?"
"That was the Iliad, Jordan," said Sedgwick, "the first book that we read. The story was the siege of Troy. That was a city over on the east shore of this very sea, and the Greeks went over there in their boats and besieged it for nine years before they captured it."
"How long ago war that, Jim?" asked Jordan.
"Three thousand years," was the reply.
"But they were fighters, them fellers?" said Jordan.
"Yes, great fighters," said Sedgwick.
"And their hosses war thoroughbreds, every one? Isn't thet so, Jim?" said Jordan.
"They were great horses, indeed," said Sedgwick.
"Powerful," said Jordan, "good for fo' mile heats, sho'? And thet other chap, Nais, didn't he settle round here somewhar?"
"You mean Æneas, Jordan. It was in Virgil that we read that. Æneas was of the family of that Priam who was king of Troy when the siege was on. He got away in a ship and finally landed and settled in southern Italy, off here to our left, and the legend goes that his descendants founded Rome."