Page:Floating City (1904).djvu/145

 hands very erect, arms tightly pressed against their chests, and holding their fists firmly in front.

In the second round O'Kelly and Wilmore were in a line, having distanced their exhausted competitors. They obviously verified the Doctor's saying,—

"It is not with the legs, but with the chest that one runs; ham-strings are good, but lungs are better."

At the last turning but one the spectators again cheered their favourites. Cries and hurrahs broke out on all sides.

"The little one will win," said Pitferge to me. "Look, he is not even panting, and his rival is breathless."

Wilmore indeed looked calm and pale, whilst O'Kelly was steaming like a damp hay-stack; he was "pumped out," to use a sportsman's slang expression, but both of them kept the same line. At last they passed the upper decks; the hatchway of the engine-rooms, the winning-post.

"Hurrah! hurrah! for Wilmore," cried some.

"Hurrah! for O'Kelly," chimed in others.

"Wilmore has won."

"No, they are together."

The truth was Wilmore had won, but by hardly half a head so the Honourable Mac Carthy decided. However, the discussion continued, and even came to words. The partisans of the Irishman, and particularly Harry Drake, maintained that it was a "dead heat," and that they ought to go again.