It is not the first place I look for. I am not the man; this is no struggle for victory—yet might it be!—but conquest is for them, Neptune, to whom thou givest it. Let our shame be to come in last; be this your victory, friends, to keep off disgrace.” Straining every nerve, they threw themselves forward; their mighty strokes make the brazen keel quiver, the ground flies from under them; thick panting shakes their limbs, 5 their parched throats; sweat flows down in streams. A mere chance gave them the wished preëminence; for while Sergestus, blind with passion, keeps driving his prow towards the rock nearer and nearer, and pressing through the narrow passage, his ill star entangled him with a projecting 10 crag. The cliffs were jarred, the oars cracked as they met the sharp flint, and the prow hung where it had lodged. Up spring the sailors with loud shout, while the ship stands still. They bring out their iron-shod poles and pointed boat-hooks, and pick up the broken oars in 15 the water. But Mnestheus, rejoicing, and keener for success, with quick plashing oars, and the winds at his call, makes for the seas that shelve to the coast and speeds along the clear expanse. Like as a dove suddenly startled in a cave, where in the hollow of the rock are her home and her 20 loved nestlings, issues out to fly over the plain, clapping loud her pinions in terror in the cell—then, gliding smooth through the tranquil air, she winnows her liquid way without a motion of her rapid wings—so with Mnestheus, so the Shark, flying of herself, cuts through the last water 25 of the course, so the mere impulse bears her speeding on. First he takes leave of Sergestus, struggling with the tall rock and the shallow water, and in vain calling for help, and learning to run along with broken oars. Then he comes up with Gyas and the great monster Chimæra itself; she 30 yields, because deprived of her pilot. And now there remains Cloanthus alone, just at the very end of the race; him he makes for, and presses on him with all the force of effort. Then, indeed, the shouting redoubles—all lend their good-will to spur on the second man, and the sky 35 echoes with the din. These think it shame to lose the glory that they have won, the prize that is already their own, and would fain barter life for renown; these are feeding on success, they feel strong because they feel that they are thought[188] strong. And perhaps their beaks would have been even and the prize divided, had not Cloanthus, stretching out both hands over the deep, breathed a prayer and called the gods to hear his vow:—“Powers 5 whose is the rule of ocean, whose waters I ride, for you with glad heart will I lead to your altars on this shore a snow-white bull, as a debtor should; I will throw the entrails