ogether characteristic of Commodus, that I felt a qualm
all over me. And a second gesture of exultation as he vanished through the
Gate of Triumph was equally individual.

The Red won the second race, which put Colgius, Uttius and Ramnius in high
good humor and seemed to make their fat, smiling wives even more smiling.

Agathemer and I agreed that the rumors retailed by Colgius concerning the
wager said to have been made by Palus were probably correct; for he did
just what that rumor specified and so singular and spectacular a series of
feats could hardly have been fortuitous. It was quite plain that he pulled
in his team in the third race, and let a Gold team get the lead of him and
keep it till five eggs and five dolphins had been taken down by the tally-
keepers' menials and there were but two full laps to run. Then he took the
lead easily in the middle of the straight and won by four full lengths.

So of the other races in which he drove. He pulled in his team at the
start and each time allowed to get ahead of him one more team than in his
last race. Then he joyously and without apparent effort passed first one,
in one straight, then another in another, varying his methods from race to
race, watching for and seizing his opportunities, biding his time, dashing
into top speed as he chose, all smoothly and in perfect form.

The Blue team of piebalds with my trick-stallion among them won the fourth
race in which Palus did not compete.

The eleventh race, in which Palus let the whole field of five precede him,
was most exciting, especially because of the length of lead he gave even
to the fifth team, and the impression of inevitableness about his victory
afterwards. The thirteenth, in which he did not drive, was notable for an
appalling smash-up of five chariots, in which three jockeys were killed
and eight horses killed outright or so badly injured that the clearing-
crew had to put them out of their agonies.

The fourteenth race would have been spoiled by an even worse massacre had
it not been for the superlative skill of Palus and his amazing luck. He
had passed five of the seven chariots which had the lead of him at the
start and was a close third to the two Blue teams, with the entire field
well up behind, three abreast, mostly, bunched up in a fashion which
seldom happens. The whole dozen had gathered way after the tenth turn, as
they came up the straight past the judges and us on the first lap, while
two eggs