Before long the bay team was leading alone.  Behind were two Christian drivers, followed by three red chariots; Marcus was last of all, but it was easy to see that it was by choice and not by necessity that he was hanging back.  He was holding in his fiery team with all his strength and weight—­his body thrown back, his feet firmly set with his knees against the silver bar of the chariot, and his hands gripping the reins.  In a few minutes he came flying past Dada and his brother, but he did not see them.  He had not even caught sight of his own mother, while the professional charioteers had not failed to bow to Cynegius and nod to their friends.  He could only keep his eyes and mind fixed on his horses and on the goal.

The multitude clapped, roared, shouted encouragement to their party, hissed and whistled when they were disappointed—­venting their utmost indignation on Marcus as he came past behind the others; but he either heard them not or would not hear.  Dada’s heart beat so wildly that she thought it would burst.  She could not sit still; she started to her feet and then flung herself back on her cushions, shouting some spurring words to Marcus in the flash of time when he might perhaps hear them.  When he had passed, her head fell and she said sadly enough:  “Poor fellow!—­We have bought our wreaths for nothing after all, Demetrius!”

But Demetrius shook his head and smiled.

“Nay,” he said, “the boy has iron sinews in that slight body.  Look how he holds the horses in!  He is saving their strength till they need it.  Seven times, child, seven times he has to go round this great circus and past the ‘nyssa’.  You will see, he will catch up what he has lost, yet.  Hippias, you see, is holding in his horses, too; it is his way of giving himself airs at starting.  Now he is close to the ’nyssa’—­the ’kampter’—­the ‘meta’ they call it at Rome; the smaller the bend he can make round it the better for him, but it is risky work.  There—­you see!—­They drive round from right to left and that throws most of the work on the lefthand beast; it has to turn almost in its own length.  Aura, our first horse, is as supple as a panther and I trained her to do it, myself.—­Now, look out there! that bronze figure of a rearing horse—­the ‘Taraxippos’ they call it—­is put there to frighten the horses, and Megaera, our third horse, is like a mad thing sometimes, though she can go like a stag; every time Marcus gets her quietly past the Taraxippos we are nearer to success.—­Look, look,=-the first chariot has got round the nyssa!  It is Hippias!  Yes, by Zeus, he has done it!  He is a detestable braggart, but he knows his business!”

This was one of the decisive moments of the race.  The crowd was silent; expectation was at the utmost pitch of tension, and Dada’s eyes were fixed spell-bound on the obelisk and on the quadrigas that whirled round the bourn.