re sunset, while the light
was still strong; stronger, in fact, than earlier in the day, for a sort
of film of cloud had mitigated the glare of noon, while by the start of
the last race the sky was the deepest, clearest blue and the sun's
radiance undimmed by any hindrance.

That last race! Palus passed nine competitors in ten half laps, and, in
the first half of the sixth lap, was again third to two Blue teams one of
which was the piebald team with the Reate trick-stallion as left-hand
yoke-mate. Again, as in the fourteenth race, the field was close up,
widespread, bunched, and thundering at top speed. Palus was driving the
dapple grays with which he had won the first race.

Now, what happened, happened much quicker than it can be told, happened in
the twinkling of an eye. The inner leading Blue team apparently hugged the
_spina_ wall too close and jammed its left-hand hub-end against the
marble, stopping the chariot, so that the axle and pole slewed and so that
the horses, since the pole and the traces did not snap, were brought nose
on against the wall and piled up horridly, just at the goal-line, opposite
the judges stand, and falling so that as they fell they straightened out
the pole and brought the chariot to a standstill with its axle neatly
across the course.

The other Blue, with the piebalds, was not close in to the leaders, but
fairly well out and about a length behind. As the wall-team piled up
something happened among the free-running piebalds. Of course, I
conjecture that the trick-stallion threw himself sideways at a signal. But
it seems incredible that a creature as timid as a horse, so compellingly
controlled by the instinct to keep on its feet, should, in the frenzy of
the crisis of a race, while in the mad rush of a full-speed gallop, obey a
signal so out of variance with his natural impulse. Agathemer vows he saw
the trick-stallion throw himself against the chief horse while he and the
other two were running strong and true. I did not see that; I only saw the
four piebalds go down in a heap in front of their chariot, saw the chariot
stop dead, saw, even at that distance, that its axle was perfectly in line
with the axle of the other wrecked chariot, both chariots right side up
and too close together for any chariot to pass between them.

Palus, skimming the sand not three horse lengths behind the piebalds, was
trapped and certain to be piled up against the wrecked Blues, under three
or four more