"Dion! Dion! for your city!" echoes the mighty voice of thrice ten thousand men—and at the cry the boy's face comes up even with the black beard of Philoctetes, the tense countenance of the Athenian.
Neck by neck, stride for stride the three stagger on, and the finish is but a few steps away. The multitude is mad with excitement. Even the Hellenodikæ forget their stoicism, and lean forward, for who touches the stone first, if by only a hair's-breadth, is the winner. Then above the deep roar of the crowd sounds a voice like a trumpet-peal, the tremendous voice of Hippomaches, wisest of the sons of men in every wile of the stadion.
"The finish! Dion, the finish! Remember!—Now!"
Through the dimness that is slowly clouding Dion's senses the voice pierces. Almost in the last stride of the race the boy, with arms extended, throws himself forward like a diver, and the hands, outstretched, are on the goal-stone a fraction of a second before the feet of the others. And with the feeling of the smooth coolness of the marble at his finger-tips comes a great darkness, and Dion knows nothing more until he finds himself standing in the temple of Zeus on the chryselephantine table that Zeuxis made—the most beautiful in the world. Around him are the strong arms of his father. He hears the pealing chant, "Tenella! Tenella!" "Hail to the victor!" and on his forehead feels the light pressure of the hardly won olive wreath that crowns him before the world the winner of the dolichos.
[GRANDFATHER'S ADVENTURES.]
BY CAPTAIN HOWARD PATTERSON.
"Grandpop," said Ralph Pell, "a little while ago I asked Sam if he had seen many sharks in his lifetime, and he said that he saw more sharks the night he first joined your vessel than he ever saw before or since. When I asked him to tell me the story he shut up as tight as a clam. Do you know what he means?"
"Yes, Ralph, I know what he refers to, and I'll tell you the yarn. It is a good many years ago since I was made proud by receiving as my first command a fine, tight little bark called the Northern Light. I carried out a general cargo to Matanzas, on the north side of Cuba, and loaded sugar for my return voyage.
"The day that I received my clearance papers and was ready to sail, our agent, a Spanish gentleman of the name of Gonzales, invited me to take a farewell dinner.