On a heap of sweaters in a corner of the open room of the boat-house lay stretched the Westcott crews, awaiting, under pretence of calmness, the moment for carrying out their boats. They could not start until the arrival of the launch which was to bear the officials. Meantime various friends who had smuggled themselves into the close quarters clustered about to stay up their champions and divert their minds from the race.
“Ben has got his quinquereme out,” said Mike, coming in from a visit to the float. “They’re rowing round here challenging everybody to race.”
“What’s the quinquereme?” asked Roger, raising himself on his elbow.
“It’s an old eight-oared ship’s cutter from some Spanish war vessel, that Ben discovered down by the East Cambridge bridge,” explained Pete. “He’s filled it full of fellows who want to see the races.”
“Because he likes the name, of course,” declared Eaton, laughing. “He doesn’t care what it means. Fluffy and his gang have picked up a big dory thing they call a bireme. They’re going to row the quinquereme.”
“That’s all over,” said Mike. “The quinquereme beat out the bireme and the pair-oar. Tracy says he’s going to challenge the second next.”
“Let’s go out and see them,” proposed Roger. He raised himself into a sitting position as if to carry out his suggestion, but Talbot pulled him back.
“No, you don’t,” ordered the captain. “You aren’t here to amuse yourself!”
Just then the cry arose that the launch was coming, and the non-combatants crowded to the door. Through one of the wide arches of the bridge, its parapet topped for a hundred yards by a dense row of heads, the slender _Veritas_ was speeding down upon the boat-house.
“Second crew out!” commanded Talbot. McDowell and his men fetched their oars from the corner and laid them side by side at the edge of the float; then they brought out their boat, and, dropping it into the water, fitted their oars into the locks and took their places. When toe straps were well adjusted and the slides fully tested, friendly hands laid hold of the blades of the port oars at Mac’s signal, and shoved the boat forth.
The four oars took the water with a hard clean catch. Backward swung the blue, white-lettered jerseys in perfect unison; forward they came again, their slides returning easily with the motion of the boat, and again the blades snatched at the water and drove it back in one steady, prolonged push. The lads in the untippable old quinquereme mounted their benches and yelled the school cheers in a fierce burst of loyalty. A knot of old Westcottites on the bank echoed the cheer.