Bert Wilson, Marathon Winner Part 6

"Here's hoping you get it," replied Bert, and after a little more talk and a cordial invitation to drop in whenever they could, the boys went out in the open.

The breeze freshened as night came on and the waves were running high, but the _Northland_ was as "steady as a church." After supper there was a concert in the great saloon and there was no dearth of talent. Some of the fellows were members of mandolin and banjo clubs and had brought their instruments along. Others had fine ba.s.s and tenor voices, and glee clubs were improvised. The amateur theatrical contingent was not lacking, and, what with song and sketch and music, the evening pa.s.sed all too rapidly. The trainers, however, who never let pleasure interfere with business, came now to the fore and packed the boys off to their staterooms to have a good night's rest before real work began on the morrow.

"Well," said Bert, the next morning, as, after a hearty breakfast, he sat on the edge of his berth, getting into his running togs, "here comes one more new experience. There's certainly nothing monotonous about the racing game. I've run up hill and down, I've run through the woods, I've run on the cinder paths, I've run round the bases, and, when the savages chased us last year, I ran for my life. Now I'm to run on a ship's deck. I'll bet there isn't any kind of running I haven't done.

I've even run an automobile."

"Oh, I don't know," said d.i.c.k, flippantly, "you haven't run up a board bill."

"No," added Tom, "and you haven't run for office."

A well-aimed pillow that made him duck ended these outrages on the English language, and, as Reddy poked his head in just then to summon his charge, they tumbled up on deck.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST MARATHON

"By George!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, as he looked about him. "I wish we had a moving picture machine on board. This would make a dandy film."

There was certainly motion enough to satisfy the most ardent advocate of the "strenuous life." The deck was humming with life at its fullest. Two hundred young athletes in their picturesque costumes were working away as though their lives depended on it. Here a swimmer splashed in the tank and ran the gamut of all the strokes--the "side," the "sneak," the "crawl," the "trudgeon." From the fencers' quarters came the clash of steel on steel, as they thrust and parried, now retreating, now advancing, seeking to touch with the b.u.t.toned point the spot that marked their opponent's heart. The bark of the revolver and the more p.r.o.nounced crack of the rifle bespoke the effort of the marksmen to round into form. Drake at the stern was striving to outdo his rivals in casting the discus far behind the ship. On the cork track the hundred-yard men were flashing like meteors from end to end, while the milers and long-distance men circled the ship at ten laps to the mile. The trainers snapped the watches on the trial heats and strove to correct defects of form or pace. Everywhere was speed and energy and abounding life. It was a fine example of the spirit that has made America great--the careful preparation, the unwearied application, the deadly determination that simply refuses to lose when it has once entered upon a struggle. And Bert's heart bounded as he realized that he was one of this splendid band chosen to uphold the honor of the flag. The thought added wings to his feet as he flew again and again around the track, and he might have prolonged the trial far beyond the point of prudence had it not been for the restraining hand of Reddy. That foxy individual never let his sporting blood--and he had aplenty--run away with his common sense. He knew when to apply the brake as well as the spur, and on this first day under the novel conditions the brake was the more important. So, long before Bert would have stopped of his own accord and while he was reeling off the miles with no sense of exhaustion, Reddy called a halt.

"Enough is plenty," said he, in answer to Bert's protestations that he had just begun to run. "Even if the ship is steady, we've got to take account of the motion. You can't do on sea what you can on land. Ye'll get leg-sore if ye keep it up too long." So Bert, although full of running, took his shower and called it a morning's work.

A shorter run in the afternoon rounded out his first day's practice, and after supper the boys sat around on deck, enjoying the cooling breeze.

Professor Davis of their own college, who was one of the members of the Olympic Committee, had lighted his cigar and joined the group of Blues.

Although a scholar of world-wide reputation, he was by no means of the "dry-as-dust" type. Alive to his finger tips, he was as much a boy as any of them. All ceremony had been put off with his scholastic cap and gown, and now, as he sat with them in easy good fellowship, he was for the moment not their teacher but their comrade.

"Yes," said the Professor, as he looked musingly over the rail, while the _Northland_ steadily ploughed her way through the waves; "what Waterloo was to modern Europe, what Gettysburg is to the United States, Marathon was to Greece. Perhaps a more important battle was never fought in the history of the world."

A chance remark about the Marathon race had set the Professor going, and the boys eagerly drew their chairs nearer. They were always keenly interested in anything that savored of a fight, and the "Prof." had a striking way of telling a story. He had the gift of making his hearers see the thing that he described. As Tom put it, "he didn't give lectures, he drew pictures." It was a picture that he drew now, and, as they listened, they were no longer young Americans of the twentieth century, but Greek youth of twenty-five hundred years earlier. They might have been shepherds or goatherds, tending their flocks on the mountain slopes above the Bay of Marathon, looking open-eyed at the great Persian fleet of six hundred ships, as it slowly sailed into the bay and prepared to disembark the troops.

The immediate object of the expedition was the capture and destruction of Athens, which had defied Darius, King of Persia, and added insult to injury by invading his territory and burning the city of Sardis.

To have his beard plucked in this insolent fashion was something new to the haughty king. He was the autocrat of all Asia. Courtiers fawned upon him; nations cringed before him. He styled himself "King of Kings and Lord of Lords," and no one had the hardihood to dispute the t.i.tle. He was the Caesar of the Asiatic world, and Persia occupied the same position as that afterward held by Rome in Europe. It was not to be borne that this little state of Athens should dare to flout his authority. When he heard of the burning of Sardis, his rage was frightful. He shot an arrow into the air as a symbol of the war he prepared to wage. He commanded that every day a slave waiting at table should remind him: "Sire, remember the Athenians." He sent heralds to all the Greek cities with terrible threats of reprisals, but they were sent back with mockery and ridicule. A mighty armament that he had marshaled was wrecked, but, nothing daunted, he organized another. And it was this vast army that now threatened sack and destruction to the cities of Greece.

It had already captured Eretria, and its surviving citizens were now held in chains, waiting for the Athenians to be joined with them and brought into the presence of King Darius, who was already taxing his ingenuity to devise unheard of tortures for them. And now the galleys had been beached on the shelving sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Marathon, on the edge of which the village stood in a plain that widened in the center, but drew together at the ends like the horns of a crescent. Here they leisurely came on sh.o.r.e, elated at their first victory on Grecian soil and looking confidently for a second.

Upon the outcome of that day hung the future of the world. If Persia won, the last barrier would have been demolished that shut out Asia from Europe, and there would have been no serious check to prevent the barbarian hordes from swarming over the entire continent. Greek art and culture and civilization would have been blotted out and the entire course of history would have been changed.

It seemed the fight of a pigmy against a giant. The odds in favor of the Persians were tremendous. Hundreds of galleys had been required to carry their forces to the Grecian coast. One hundred thousand men, trained and veteran warriors, accustomed to victory, were drawn up in battle array.

Against this mighty host the Greeks had about ten thousand men. They had sent for help to Sparta, but, under the influence of a superst.i.tious custom, the Spartans had refused to march until the moon was at the full. Only a thousand men from Plataea came to the a.s.sistance of the outnumbered Athenians.

For several days the armies faced each other, the Persians drawn up on the plain of Marathon and the Greeks encamped on a hillside a mile distant. There were ten commanders of the little force, and opinion was divided as to whether they should attack at once or wait for the help of Sparta. By a narrow margin the bolder policy prevailed, and it was decided to grapple with the enemy then and there.

The Persians were astounded when they saw the devoted little army rushing down the slope and making at double-quick across the plain, chanting their battle song. It seemed like madness or suicide. Half contemptuously, they formed ranks to receive them. The Greeks burst upon them with irresistible fury. The very fierceness and audacity of the attack confused and demoralized their opponents. The center stood its ground, but the wings gave way. Soon the battle became a rout; the rout a ma.s.sacre. The Persians were beaten back to their galleys with terrible loss and hastily put out to sea. The Greeks lost only a hundred and ninety-two men, and over the bodies of these was erected a huge funeral mound that remains to the present day, as a memorial of that wonderful fight.

The battle had been begun in the late afternoon and dusk had fallen when the slaughter ceased. After the first wild jubilation the thought of the victors turned toward Athens, twenty-six miles away. The city was waiting with bated breath for news of the struggle, watching, praying, fearing, scarcely daring to hope. News must be gotten to them at once.

Pheidippides, a noted runner, started off on foot. The roads were rough and hilly, but he ran through the night as one inspired. To all he met he shouted the news and kept on with unabated ardor. Hills rose and fell behind him. His breath came in gasps. On he went, the fire of patriotic pa.s.sion burning in his veins. Now from the brow of a hill he saw the lights of Athens.

On, on he ran, but by this time his legs were wavering, his brain was reeling. He had not spared himself and now he was nearly spent. He gathered himself together for one last effort and staggered into the market place where all the city had gathered. They rushed forward to meet him. He gasped out: "Rejoice. We conquer," and fell dead at their feet. His glorious exploit with its tragical ending made him a national hero, and his name was held in reverence as long as the city endured.

The speaker stopped, and for a few minutes no one spoke. The boys had been too deeply stirred. Their thoughts were still with that lonely runner rushing through the night. It was a shock to come from beneath the spell and get back to the present.

"I suppose, Professor," said Tom, at last, "that you've seen the place where the battle was fought?"

"Yes," was the reply, "I was there on the same trip when I visited Olympia."

"What," broke in Bert, "the identical place where the first Olympic games were held nearly three thousand years ago?"

"The identical spot," smiled the professor. "You can still see the walls of the old Stadium where the games were held. Of course the greater part of it is in ruins after so long a time, but you can get a very good idea of the whole thing. It's a beautiful spot and I don't wonder the old Greeks went crazy over it."

"Those fellows were 'fresh-air fiends,' all right," said Tom. "You wouldn't think they had any homes. Everything you read about seems to have happened in the streets or the market place or the gymnasium."

"Yes," returned the professor, "the Greeks were a nation of festivals.

They lived out of doors, and their glorious climate made possible all sorts of open-air gatherings and recreations. Their love of beauty, as shown especially in the human form, found expression in the sports and exercises that developed the body to the fullest extent. They did not neglect the soul--Plato and Socrates and hosts of others bear testimony to that--but the body and its development were always uppermost in their thoughts. They honored their thinkers, but they worshipped their athletes. Physical exercises began almost in infancy and continued to extreme old age and the chief honors of the state were reserved for those who excelled in some form of bodily strength. Poets sang about them and statues were raised to them."

"What games did they have?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Very much the same as ours," was the answer. "There was a hippodrome for chariot racing, and if you boys remember the description in 'Ben-Hur,' you can imagine how exciting it was. Then there were foot races, at first a single lap around the course, but afterward developing into middle and long-distance running. Besides these were wrestling, leaping, discus-throwing, boxing and hurling the javelin."

"There's one thing I like about them," said Bert. "They weren't bloodthirsty, like the Romans."

"No, we must give them credit for that. There were no better fighters in the world. But the infliction of wanton cruelty, the shedding of blood needlessly, the gloating over human suffering, was wholly repulsive to the Greeks. Perhaps they hated it, not because it was wicked, but because it was ugly. Rome wallowed in wounds and blood. It shouted with delight as gladiators hewed and hacked each other and wild beasts tore women and children to pieces. Its horrible thirst was never slaked and its appet.i.te grew by what it fed upon. The Coliseum with its sickening sights could never have existed in Greece. The Romans developed the brute in man; the Greeks developed the G.o.d."

"I suppose they had to train pretty hard for the games," mused Bert, as he thought of the iron rule of Reddy.

"They certainly did," laughed the professor. "You fellows think you have to work hard, but they worked harder. Why, they had to train steadily for ten months before they entered for any event. Then, too, they had to walk pretty straight. Before the games, a herald challenged all who might know of any wrong thing a compet.i.tor had done to stand forth and declare it openly. So that when a man came out winner, he had a certificate of character as well as skill."

"No doubt the fellows that won were looked upon as the real thing,"

suggested d.i.c.k.

"I should say so," said the professor. "The value placed upon a victory was almost incredible. To our cooler Western natures it seems excessive.

The fellow citizens of the victor carried him home in triumph. They supported him for the rest of his life. He became the first citizen in the state. The town walls were broken down so that he might enter by a path that had never before been trodden by human foot."

"Well," remarked d.i.c.k, "I don't suppose Uncle Sam will go as crazy as all that when Bert comes home with the Marathon prize."

"_If_ he comes home with it, you mean," corrected Bert. "'There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip,' and I may be in for one of the slips."

"Whether you are or not," rejoined the professor, as they rose to retire, "rests 'on the lap of the G.o.ds.' But what we do know is that, win or lose, you're going to do your best.

""Tis not in mortals to achieve success, They may do more--deserve it.'"

CHAPTER VIII