neath every one. In short, before he had time to think what a
wonderful affair it was, he beheld an abundant harvest of what looked
like human beings, armed with helmets and breastplates, shields, swords,
and spears; and before they were well out of the earth, they brandished
their weapons, and clashed them one against another, seeming to think,
little while as they had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of
life without a battle. Every tooth of the dragon had produced one of
these sons of deadly mischief.

Up sprouted also a great many trumpeters; and with the first breath that
they drew, they put their brazen trumpets to their lips, and sounded a
tremendous and ear-shattering blast, so that the whole space, just now
so quiet and solitary, reverberated with the clash and clang of arms,
the bray of warlike music, and the shouts of angry men. So enraged did
they all look, that Cadmus fully expected them to put the whole world to
the sword. How fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could
get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow!

"Cadmus," said the same voice which he had before heard, "throw a stone
into the midst of the armed men."

So Cadmus seized a large stone, and flinging it into the middle of
the earth army, saw it strike the breastplate of a gigantic and
fierce-looking warrior. Immediately on feeling the blow, he seemed to
take it for granted that somebody had struck him; and, uplifting his
weapon, he smote his next neighbor a blow that cleft his helmet asunder,
and stretched him on the ground. In an instant, those nearest the fallen
warrior began to strike at one another with their swords, and stab with
their spears. The confusion spread wider and wider. Each man smote down
his brother, and was himself smitten down before he had time to exult in
his victory. The trumpeters, all the while, blew their blasts shriller
and shriller; each soldier shouted a battle cry, and often fell with it
on his lips. It was the strangest spectacle of causeless wrath, and of
mischief for no good end, that had ever been witnessed; but, after all,
it was neither more foolish nor more wicked than a thousand battles that
have since been fought, in which men have slain their brothers with just
as little reason as these children of the dragon's teeth. It ought to
be considered, too, that the dragon people were made for nothing else;
whereas other mortals were born to love and help one another.

Well, this memorable