azen fingers, while all the
snakes on their heads reared themselves on end with surprise and with
venomous malice against they knew not what. But when the Gorgons saw the
scaly carcass of Medusa, headless, and her golden wings all ruffled and
half spread out on the sand, it was really awful to hear what yells and
screeches they set up. And then the snakes! They sent forth a
hundredfold hiss with one consent, and Medusa's snakes answered them out
of the magic wallet.

No sooner were the Gorgons broad awake than they hurtled upward into the
air, brandishing their brass talons, gnashing their horrible tusks and
flapping their huge wings so wildly that some of the golden feathers
were shaken out and floated down upon the shore. And there, perhaps,
those very feathers lie scattered till this day. Up rose the Gorgons, as
I tell you, staring horribly about, in hopes of turning somebody to
stone. Had Perseus looked them in the face or had he fallen into their
clutches, his poor mother would never have kissed her boy again! But he
took good care to turn his eyes another way; and as he wore the helmet
of invisibility, the Gorgons knew not in what direction to follow him;
nor did he fail to make the best use of the winged slippers by soaring
upward a perpendicular mile or so. At that height, when the screams of
those abominable creatures sounded faintly beneath him, he made a
straight course for the island of Seriphus, in order to carry Medusa's
head to King Polydectes.

I have no time to tell you of several marvelous things that befell
Perseus on his way homeward, such as his killing a hideous sea monster
just as it was on the point of devouring a beautiful maiden, nor how he
changed an enormous giant into a mountain of stone merely by showing him
the head of the Gorgon. If you doubt this latter story, you may make a
voyage to Africa some day or other and see the very mountain, which is
still known by the ancient giant's name.

Finally, our brave Perseus arrived at the island where he expected to
see his dear mother. But during his absence, the wicked king had treated
Danae so very ill that she was compelled to make her escape, and had
taken refuge in a temple, where some good old priests were extremely
kind to her. These praiseworthy priests and the kind-hearted fisherman,
who had first shown hospitality to Danae and little Perseus when he
found them afloat in the chest, seem to have been the only persons on
the island who ca