Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/87

THE SPIRIT OF OLYMPIA lean backward until the stick nearly touches the ground behind, then a jump forward and a throw so long that his hand moves fully nine feet in a straight line before it lets the missile go with a furious rifling motion—and the jareed darts up and off with a queer little nervous twist like an angry snake, and drops nearly two hundred feet away, with a force that would have broken a man's skull.

It is a proud moment for thirty Eastern athletes when they step up to the platform where the governor and his staff are sitting, and receive their medals from the Norwegian wife of the American consul and the American daughter-in-law of the Turkish pasha. Everything is over now except the football game, and the governor has stayed through it all, thus giving a most signal mark of his interest and approval. He indicates his wish to retire, and the crowd gives way for his escort. The carriages drive up to the grand stand with much snapping of whips, and the outriders prance gayly around on their restive Arabs. But just then the football teams run out into the field, resplendent in their new uniforms; and the governor repents of his decision to leave, sinks back into his seat and motions the carriages to drive away.

The captain of the medical team is a great, bearded Syrian, six feet tall. The captain of the collegiate eleven is two inches taller, also a Syrian in name and very proud of his country and race, but with a sense [ 57 ]