walls were covered with large black panels upon which were painted
figures in brilliant colours. Surrounding each panel there was a
rich border of painted flowers. In the midst of the room, placed on
trestles, was a table, at which the men of the family were already
seated. The father, a middle-aged man, dressed very much in the same
fashion as Agis, except that he wore a saffron-coloured instead of a
white cloak, looked up and smiled as the boy entered. But he took no
notice of the two little girls, and they felt quite sure he neither saw
nor heard them.
Seated near to him was a very handsome young man who looked about
nineteen or twenty. Except that his curly hair was dark and his eyes
brown, instead of grey, he was so like Agis that the children knew he
must be the brother Phidolas, of whom he had spoken.
Agis swung himself into his place at the table, which was spread with
dishes containing olives, figs, a sort of cream cheese, and flasks of
wine, and passed some of these things to his invisible guests.
“Phidolas and I are, as a matter of course, in training for the games,”
he said. “Therefore we must eat only of such diet as this. But it may
be that simple food pleases you? Eat and drink, and fear no questions
from my father and brother. The magic of Sheshà protects you, and they
are ignorant of your presence.”
Rachel and Diana were too interested to care much for food, though the
ripe figs they tasted were delicious. They cast quick glances about a
room so strange to them, and noticed that it contained scarcely any
furniture. Except for the simple trestle table, and the chairs round it
which were of a beautiful shape and had curved arms, there were only
two tripods, each holding an elegant vase, placed in corners against
the walls. The door opened upon the colonnade, and beyond it they saw
the courtyard with its roof of wonderful blue sky.
“To-morrow at this hour we shall be upon the journey!” exclaimed Agis,
addressing his brother. “And at this hour three days hence thou wilt
without doubt be in the midst of the race, Phidolas!”
“The gods grant thee victory, my sons,” said the father gravely. “I
pray to them for their favour and protection.”
Before long the three were in animated talk about the games, and the
children listened eagerly to discussions as to which of the candidates
from Athens had the best chances of victory.
“All goes well with thy mare, I trust?” asked Agis, presently, turning
to his brother.
“With Aura all is well,” returned Phidolas cheerfully. “Let us now go
to her stable and see that she is fed.”
The boys rose, and at the moment two slaves entered, who, taking the
dishes from the table, removed the board and the trestles, thus in less
than two minutes leaving the room practically empty.
“_Our_ dinners take much longer to clear,” murmured Rachel. She looked
at Agis. “Haven’t you any mother? Or any sisters?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” said the boy. “My mother lives, and I have two sisters. But
they are not with us, of course.”
“Why not?” demanded Diana.
Agis stared. “Always I forget you are strangers!” he declared,
laughing. “They are in the women’s part of the house, where they live.
They do not pass their time with us. In our country such is not the
custom. Look yonder!” He took them out into the courtyard and pointed
to where, through a passage, they saw another open space surrounded by
a colonnade.
“That is the women’s quarter,” he explained, carelessly. “There my
mother and sisters live and do their work.”
“What sort of work?” asked Rachel.
Agis shrugged his shoulders. “The usual work of women. They and the
female slaves spin wool for our garments and cook our meals and prepare
medicines and cordials in case of illness.... But come, follow me, and
you shall behold Aura, who is well worthy of your regard.”
“I shouldn’t like to have been a Greek girl in Athens long ago, would
you?” whispered Rachel to Diana. “It must have been horribly dull!”
“I wonder what Agis thinks of _us_,” chuckled Diana. “He’s never met
girls like us before. You can see that. Sheshà seems to be able to
do anything he likes in any country. No wonder everyone calls him
‘greatest of magicians.’”
They were following Agis and Phidolas all this time, and presently
through a door that led from the covered colonnade came to a yard, in
which stood a stable built of rough stones. Aura, the mare of which
they had heard so much, was looking over its low door, and, at the
sight of her, both children cried out in delight.
“She’s almost prettier than Bucephalus,” Rachel declared. “Look at her
lovely brown satin coat, and her sweet beautiful eyes!”
“And doesn’t she simply _love_ Phidolas?” exclaimed Diana. “Look at her
now.” The beautiful creature was rubbing her head against the young
man’s shoulder while he talked to her, as though she were a human being.
“Thou wilt win me the race, is it not so, my lovely one?” he murmured
in her ear, while Agis, after patting her shining neck, went to fetch a
handful of corn.
“Oh, Rachel, if _only_ we could go to Olympia and see the games!”
sighed Diana. “But you heard what Agis said. The journey will take
about three days, so of course we couldn’t——”
* * * * *
She broke off in the midst of the sentence to rub her eyes. Rachel was
rubbing hers also.
“Where are we?” she began incoherently, gazing about her.
“We were looking at Aura—and now—oh, Rachel, I do believe it’s
_Olympia_!” the last words were uttered with a gasp of excitement.
“It _is_. I’m sure it is,” Rachel agreed.
“Then we must have passed over three days in just that second while we
stood by the stable. How could we possibly have done that?”
“Sheshà says Time is a magic thing,” returned Rachel, dreamily. “And
it isn’t, anyhow, more wonderful than all the other things that have
happened.... Just see how lovely everything looks, Diana. Don’t let’s
bother about how we got here.”
“The sun is just going to rise, isn’t it?” whispered Diana, still
bewildered and rather awed by the suddenness of this change of scene.
They were standing on a rocky spur of mountain looking down upon a huge
circular space, enclosed by tier above tier of empty seats.
On the left, through a gap in the hills, they saw the calm blue sea,
stretching away to where above the horizon the sun, like a shield of
fire, was just rising. In front of them, and overshadowing part of the
enclosed space (which at once reminded the children of a huge circus
ring) there lay a thick wood.
Everything was very still. Not a sound broke the silence, and there
was something in the appearance of the vast empty ring with the empty
seats about it, and the mountains and the sea as background, which for
a moment was rather terrifying.
Diana drew closer to Rachel.
“I wish someone would come,” she murmured.
It was just then that a well-known voice made the children turn
with joyful relief to see Sheshà. They knew him at once, though he
was dressed in the Grecian costume to which they were now growing
accustomed.
“Oh, we’re so glad you’ve come!” sighed Rachel. “It was getting lonely
here. This is Olympia, isn’t it? But where is Agis?”
“And Phidolas?” put in Diana.
[Illustration]
“This is Olympia, on the western shores of Greece. Here, when the sun
has fully risen on this the first day of the games, will be held those
contests renowned throughout the world. From every part of Greece the
competitors have already arrived, Agis and Phidolas among them. The
youths are lodged in yonder town; and in all the villages near, other
athletes, as they are called, have found lodging. Ere long they will
begin to assemble.”
“And you will tell us all about it!” exclaimed Diana. “Better than
Agis, because _you_ know who we are, and he can’t understand—lots of
things. But he’s awfully nice,” she added hastily.
[Illustration: THE OLYMPIC GAMES]
Sheshà smiled.
“Come with me, and, before the games begin, I will show you what I can.
First shall you see the temple which encloses one of the Wonders of the
World.”
“One of the Seven Wonders?” asked Rachel.
“One of the Seven Wonders,” repeated Sheshà.
In another second, and without knowing how they reached it, the
children found themselves standing near a temple in front of which
stretched the wood they had seen from the mountain side.
“This is the famous temple of Zeus or—to give him the name more
familiar to your ears—of Jupiter Olympius. He it was who, according to
the Greeks, first commanded these games—the Olympic Games—to be held.
Later you shall behold the great statue it contains. For the moment let
us wander a little through this wood, sacred to Jupiter.”
“These are oak trees. It’s an oak wood,” said Rachel, who was wise in
knowledge of the country and its trees and flowers.
“Yes, because the oak is the special tree of Jupiter—his sacred tree.
Therefore, very rightly, an oak wood stretches before his temple.”
“Oh, there’s a statue!” exclaimed Diana suddenly, pointing to where,
between the trees, she had caught sight of a gleam of white.
“There’s a whole line of them,” she went on. “Do let us go and look.”
“Patience,” counselled Sheshà. “We shall pass them on our way. These,”
he said, when in a moment or two they had reached the marble figures,
“these are the statues representing those youths who, as victors in the
Olympic Games, claimed the right to have their statues set up in the
sacred wood. Some of them, as you behold, are already ancient, for it
is long, long ago since these contests first began.”
“Where are we exactly—in the ‘Past,’ I mean?” asked Rachel. “Has
Alexander the Great conquered Greece yet?”
Sheshà shook his head. “Alexander is as yet unborn. The games you will
behold to-day are full a hundred years before his time. Greece, though
declining from the height of her glory, is still free.”
“Oh, look! There’s quite a little boy here,” cried Diana, who was
carefully examining the statues. “Anyhow, he doesn’t look any older
than Agis. But _he_ must have won a prize, I suppose, or his statue
wouldn’t be here?”
“It has sometimes happened that young children have been victors,” said
Sheshà. “That child was one of them.”
Rachel and Diana gazed admiringly at the slim graceful figure of the
boy.
“How pleased he must have been!” exclaimed Diana. “Oh, wouldn’t it be
joyful if Agis should win to-day?”
“The funny part of it is,” began Rachel, slowly, “that it’s
settled—one way or the other. We shall be seeing all over again
something that’s already happened, you know. It’s awfully uncanny when
you come to think of it, isn’t it?”
Sheshà smiled, and gently smoothed her hair.
“All new ideas appear ‘uncanny’ at first, little maid. Yet the familiar
is really quite as marvellous as the little known.... Come now, it is
time we returned, for the sun is mounting higher, and the competitors
will be arriving. We will return to this sacred wood, and to the
temple, at the end of the day. Then shall you behold the great statue
of Zeus, the Seventh Wonder of the World.”
Almost before he had finished speaking, the children found themselves
back again in the huge “circus-ring” with its background of mountains!
But now it was no longer empty. An enormous multitude of people filled
the seats surrounding the hollow space, and from the crowd there rose a
murmur like the hum of thousands of bees.
Rachel and Diana, seated on either side of Sheshà, in “the best
places of all,” as Diana excitedly whispered, looked round them with
amazed curiosity. First they let their eyes wander over the rows of
spectators, clad in the Greek dress that was still strange to the
sight of little English girls. The general colour of the crowd was
white, varied by patches of the crimson and green and blue of many of
the cloaks.
Overhead was the glorious blue sky, and the sun’s rays, warm but not as
yet too hot, streamed over and lighted up the wonderful scene, which
every moment grew more interesting and animated.
“That,” said Sheshà, pointing to the clear space below, “is the place
of combat, called the _stadium_. And, now, behold the judges are just
about to take their places.”
There was a raised platform or daïs in the middle of the stadium, and
towards this the children saw several stately figures advancing. In a
few moments these men, seated in chairs of a shape like those they had
already seen in the home of Agis, had taken up their position on the
daïs, each one holding on his knee a crown of olive leaves, and in his
hand a palm branch.
“What are those for?” Rachel asked.
“To crown the victors. They are the only prizes, and are more eagerly
coveted than gold or precious stones. To win those simple crowns
the youths of Greece train strenuously for years. You have already
in Athens seen a gymnasium. That to which Agis belongs, is only one
of hundreds, as such training schools exist all over Greece, for
the teaching of these physical exercises which have made the Greek
nation the most beautiful in the world.... Here come some of the
competitors—the _athletes_, to give them the right name. Behold them!”
“Oh, look! look, Diana!” shouted Rachel, pointing to where a procession
of boys on horseback came riding into the stadium.
“What does it remind you of?” asked Diana quickly.
“Why, it’s exactly like that marble picture of boys riding we
saw—where was it? Why, on the Parthenon temple, of course!”
“But we saw it first in the British Museum,” Diana reminded her.
“Where it rests now, having been torn from one of the noblest temples
in the world,” said Sheshà, sadly. “The sculptor who made that frieze,
the great Phidias, must have many times seen processions like to this,”
he added, pointing to the beautiful boys who, mounted on no less
beautiful horses, were now cantering round the stadium while the crowd
applauded loudly.
“Yes! Yes! It’s just as though those marble boys had come to life,”
declared Diana, excitedly.
“Oh, look!” interrupted Rachel, still more thrilled. “There’s Phidolas
riding upon his lovely horse! Oh, don’t they look splendid together?”
“And there’s Agis!” cried Diana, jumping up and clapping her hands. “Do
you see? With a crowd of other boys, just coming in. Oh, this is simply
_frightfully_ exciting!”
Sheshà laughed. “Listen to the heralds,” he counselled. “The games are
just about to begin.”
A silence all at once fell upon the vast swaying crowd, while several
men with trumpets, advancing from the centre of the stadium and
addressing the people, cried out the names of the competitors, and the
cities from which they came.
Rachel and Diana exchanged delighted glances when the name of Agis of
Athens was announced among the rest, and, after the last notes of the
trumpets had died away, they saw the athletes being arranged for the
first race.
“That’s the umpire, I suppose?” whispered Rachel, pointing to a man who
was marshalling the boys.
Sheshà nodded, and, a second later, Diana asked eagerly: “What are they
doing now?” For one of the umpires was reciting something in a loud
voice, to which all the competitors replied with a shout of assent.
“The athletes are taking the oath to observe all the rules of the
games, and to gain no advantage by means unfair and dishonourable,”
explained Sheshà.
“Look! Look! They’re off,” cried Rachel, as she pranced up and down,
quite unable to keep still.
Like a streak of white lightning round the ring, the boys and young
men rushed with a swiftness which made the children hold their breath.
Shouts of encouragement and of delight from the audience accompanied
their course, and, after a few moments of tense excitement, the
trumpets blew, and, yes—! It was the name of Agis that resounded
through the stadium! There came a hurricane of applause in which the
children madly joined. Then other contests took place.
Each one of these, the wrestling, boxing, quoit throwing, and
especially the chariot racing, had its separate thrill, and was
followed with breathless interest by the crowd. But it was the great
horse-race to which both the children looked forward with the most
intense longing—the race in which Phidolas and his beautiful mare,
Aura, were to compete. At last it came. There were many competitors,
all of them splendid youths, mounted upon splendid horses. But, while
preparations for the start were being made, Rachel and Diana’s eyes
strayed oftenest to Phidolas and Aura.
A deep sigh from both of them told of their suspense, when like an
arrow from a bow, Aura sprang forward with her rider, and the whole
crowd of horsemen were off like the wind.
Once round the stadium had the racers been, when suddenly a great cry
arose from the spectators. Phidolas had been thrown! For a second he
lay on the ground, till the umpires, rushing forward, dragged him out
of the way of thundering hoofs. Then a mighty clamour arose....
“What are they saying? Oh, what _is_ it they’re shouting?” begged the
children, wild with anxiety.
“They are pitying Phidolas, since it was to keep faithfully the rules
of the race that he was unseated,” explained Sheshà. “Did you not see
how he swerved to avoid hindering the rider that followed him in his
course?”
But the children scarcely listened, for another shout, this time of
amazement, made them look to where everyone was pointing.
Wonder of wonders, Aura, unchecked in her speed by the fall of her
master, was racing as though he had still been on her back to guide her!
On she flew, keeping the pace well, though two or three other horses
had already outstripped her. The crowd had become silent, too full of
wonder and interest to shout, and all eyes followed Aura, who was still
a little behind the foremost riders.
And now, at the last round, according, as Sheshà explained, to the
usual custom, the heralds raised their trumpets, and blew strong blasts
to encourage the racers.
At the sound, pricking up her ears, Aura gathered herself together,
and, with a flying leap, outdistanced the foremost horsemen, and amidst
the deafening cries and applause of the spectators, was first to reach
the goal!
Nor was this all. No sooner was the race at an end, than, throwing up
her graceful head, she trotted to the daïs where the judges sat, and
stood meekly before them.
“Oh, the darling lovely thing!” cried the children, incoherently,
amidst the tumult. “She’s won! She’s won! The judges _must_ say she’s
won!”
And they did. In another moment the children saw two umpires leading
Phidolas, unhurt, between them. Lightly he sprang upon the back of his
mare, and as wild shouts rent the air, the judges placed the wreath of
olives upon his close-cropped curly head, and proclaimed him and his
horse joint victors.
After this wonderful thing had happened, it seemed almost impossible
that there should be any greater excitement in store. Yet when,
preceded by heralds blowing trumpets, the successful athletes marched
round the stadium and the air rang with the shouting and applause of
the multitude, it seemed that _this_, after all, was the greatest
moment of the day. It was difficult to decide which of the two
brothers, Phidolas or Agis, was received with the wildest enthusiasm.
When Agis was crowned, the people roared their applause because of his
youth (and, indeed, as he followed the heralds he looked a charming,
but very little boy). And when Phidolas, in his turn, rode round the
stadium, the people were again worked up to a frenzy of delight, and
Aura, as though she knew that part of the applause was meant for her,
stepped proudly, and arched her glossy neck, while her beautiful dark
eyes thanked the people for praising her.
“Oh, won’t their father be proud!” exclaimed Rachel. “Fancy having two
sons winning the olive wreath!”
“Will they have their statues put up in the sacred wood?” Diana asked.
“Yes—and there also will be the statue of the mare, Aura,” said Sheshà.
Diana jumped for joy. “So she ought! So she ought! She deserves it,”
she cried.
“Nor does the triumph of those athletes who have conquered end here,”
Sheshà went on to say. “When they return, each to his native city, the
whole population will come forth to greet them. The victor belonging to
each city, wearing his olive crown, will be placed in a chariot. Torch
bearers will receive and run before him, and, when he approaches the
wall of his native town, he will find that a breach has been made in it
through which he will drive in triumph instead of entering at any one
of its gates. In such honour do the citizens of Greece hold a victor in
the Olympian Games.”
“I expect Phidolas and Agis will drive in the same chariot when they
get back to Athens?” suggested Diana. “Oh, won’t their father be
pleased. I’m glad. He looked such a nice man.”
“He _has_ been pleased, you mean,” said Rachel, rather quietly. “It all
happened long ago.”
“It’s so difficult to remember that,” murmured Diana.
There was a little silence, and then Rachel exclaimed:
“See, the people are going. Is this the end of the games?”
“It is the end of the first day’s contests,” Sheshà replied. “There
will be yet four days, but these will not be wholly occupied by the
racing and wrestling and quoit-throwing. Poets will read their odes
in praise of the victors. Plays by the greatest dramatists in Greece
will be judged and acted, and musicians will play the music they have
composed. Olympia does not exist solely for the body. It is for the
spirit also. And some of the most famous plays in the world have been
acted here.”
“Oh, can’t we see them too?” begged the children. “Why need we go on
into the Present at all?” added Diana. “The Past is so wonderful.”
Sheshà smiled at her kindly. “The Present is wonderful too. It’s _all_
wonderful. Come now, and you shall behold yet another wonder, for the
people are going to the temple of Zeus, where the victors will worship
and give thanks. We will follow them, and you shall have a glimpse of
the statue which Phidias made in honour of Zeus, or to give him his
other name—of Jupiter Olympius.”
“He’s called that because his temple is here at Olympia, I suppose?”
Rachel said. “Agis told us something about Phidias. He made the statue
of Minerva in the Parthenon, didn’t he?”
“And the frieze of riding boys too,” put in Diana.
“Yes—he was the sculptor who adorned the Parthenon at Athens,” said
Sheshà, as they followed the huge crowd that was moving towards the
temple of Zeus. “But the citizens were ungrateful to him. Therefore he
left Athens, and came to live here, near Olympia. And for the people
of this part of Greece, he carved a statue even larger and more famous
than that of Minerva in the Parthenon—the statue you are about to
behold.”
“Look! The doors are open now. They were shut when we saw the temple
before,” cried Rachel.
“Let us walk where we may gain a view through the gates,” Sheshà
suggested. In another moment the children saw the interior of the
temple.
There, towering upwards to the height of sixty feet, they caught a
glimpse of a majestic figure. It gleamed with the white ivory and
flashed with the gold which crowned it, and for a second they saw a
grand calm face looking down upon the olive-wreathed victors who bowed
low before the shrine.
“You behold the masterpiece of Phidias—the Seventh Wonder of the
World,” murmured Sheshà. “Jupiter Olympius from his temple blesses the
victors in the games he was the first to institute.”
The voice of their guide sounded so faint and far away that the
children scarcely caught the last words.
[Illustration]
But blending with them, uttered in fact almost at the same time,
came a remark from Mr. Sheston.... “You see where the frieze, now on
the walls of this Museum, really belongs? Phidias, the sculptor, in
all probability, saw just such a procession at the Olympic Games,
celebrated throughout the world, and even now not forgotten. Didn’t you
ask me what the word _Olympia_ meant? Now you know....”
“Yes, now we know,” said Rachel, slowly. She and Diana were still
standing by the glass case containing the model of the Acropolis of
Athens.
They both glanced quickly at Mr. Sheston, but his face was quite grave
as he looked at his watch.
“I think it’s time to go to my house for tea,” he said. “I expect
you’re tired?”
The children glanced at one another now, and smiled.
“We _ought_ to be—because we’ve been away about four days, really,”
whispered Diana, lingering a moment after Mr. Sheston turned to go.
“And yet I expect it wasn’t even four _minutes_!” was Rachel’s hurried
answer.
* * * * *
A week from the day on which the children had seen Athens, sat through
the Olympic Games, returned to the British Museum and had tea with Mr.
Sheston—they were both in Aunt Hester’s drawing-room.
Rachel’s father and mother were also there, and the following morning
she and Diana were to return with them to the Seven Gables.