“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.