“The games are not ended, dear Spartan,” he observed quietly.
The giant scowled. “I don’t like you silent, smiling men! You’re warned. I’ll do my worst—”
“Let the leaping begin!” rang the voice of the president,—a call that changed all the uproar to a silence in which one might hear the wind moving in the firs outside, while every athlete felt his muscles tighten.
The heralds ran down the soft sands to a narrow mound of hardened earth, and beckoned to the athletes to follow. In the hands of each contestant were set a pair of bronze dumb-bells. The six were arrayed upon the mound with a clear reach of sand before. The master-herald proclaimed the order of the leaping: that each contestant should spring twice, and he whose leaps were the poorest should drop from the other contests.
Glaucon stood, his golden head thrown back, his eyes wandering idly toward his friends in the stadium. He could see Cimon restless on his seat, and Simonides holding his [pg 36]cloak and doubtless muttering wise counsel. The champion was as calm as his friends were nervous. The stadium had grown oppressively still; then broke into along “ah!” Twenty thousand sprang up together as Scolus the Thasian leaped. His partisans cheered, while he rose from a sand-cloud; but ceased quickly. His leap had been poor. A herald with a pick marked a line where he had landed. The pipers began a rollicking catch to which the athletes involuntarily kept time with their dumb-bells.
Glaucon leaped second. Even the hostile Laconians shouted with pleasure at sight of his beautiful body poised, then flung out upon the sands far beyond the Thasian. He rose, shook off the dust, and returned to the mound, with a graceful gesture to the cheer that greeted him; but wise heads knew the contest was just beginning.
Ctesias and Amyntas leaped beyond the Thasian’s mark, short of the Athenian’s. Lycon was fifth. His admirers’ hopes were high. He did not blast them. Huge was his bulk, yet his strength matched it. A cloud of dust hid him from view. When it settled, every Laconian was roaring with delight. He had passed beyond Glaucon. Mœrocles of Mantinea sprang last and badly. The second round was almost as the first; although Glaucon slightly surpassed his former effort. Lycon did as well as before. The others hardly bettered their early trial. It was long before the Laconians grew quiet enough to listen to the call of the herald.
“Lycon of Sparta wins the leaping. Glaucon of Athens is second. Scolus of Thasos leaps the shortest and drops from the pentathlon.”
Again cheers and clamour. The inexperienced Thasian marched disconsolately to his tent, pursued by ungenerous jeers.
“The quoit-hurling follows,” once more the herald; “each contestant throws three quoits. He who throws poorest drops from the games.”