ne. Beside her stood Hermes of the winged shoes, and
Perseus knelt before the two in worship. Then, very gently, Pallas
Athene gave him counsel, and more than counsel she gave.

In his hand she placed a polished shield, than which no mirror shone
more brightly.

"Do not look at Medusa herself; look only on her image here
reflected--then strike home hard and swiftly. And when her head is
severed, wrap it in the goatskin on which the shield hangs. So wilt
thou return in safety and in honour."

"But how, then, shall I cross the wet grey fields of this watery
way?" asked Perseus. "Would that I were a white-winged bird that skims
across the waves."

And, with the smile of a loving comrade, Hermes laid his hand on the
shoulder of Perseus.

"My winged shoes shall be thine," he said, "and the white-winged
sea-birds shalt thou leave far, far behind."

"Yet another gift is thine," said Athene. "Gird on, as gift from the
gods, this sword that is immortal."

For a moment Perseus lingered. "May I not bid farewell to my mother?"
he asked. "May I not offer burnt-offerings to thee and to Hermes, and
to my father Zeus himself?"

But Athene said Nay, at his mother's weeping his heart might relent,
and the offering that the Olympians desired was the head of Medusa.

Then, like a fearless young golden eagle, Perseus spread out his arms,
and the winged shoes carried him across the seas to the cold northern
lands whither Athene had directed him.

Each day his shoes took him a seven days' journey, and ever the air
through which he passed grew more chill, till at length he reached the
land of everlasting snow, where the black ice never knows the
conquering warmth of spring, and where the white surf of the moaning
waves freezes solid even as it touches the shore.

It was a dark grim place to which he came, and in a gloomy cavern by
the sea lived the Graeae, the three grey sisters that Athene had told
him he must seek. Old and grey and horrible they were, with but one
tooth amongst them, and but one eye. From hand to hand they passed
the eye, and muttered and shivered in the blackness and the cold.

[Illustration: THEY WHIMPERED AND BEGGED OF HIM]

Boldly Perseus spoke to them and asked them to guide him to the place
where Medusa and her sisters the Gorgons dwelt.

"No others know where they dwell," he said. "Tell me, I pray thee, the
way that I may find them."

But the Grey Women were kin to the Gorgons, and hated all the chi