Iolchos and clambered on board the
new galley. Shaking hands with Jason, they assured him that they did not
care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to the
remotest edge of the world and as much further as he might think it best
to go.

Many of these brave fellows had been educated by Chiron, the four-footed
pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of Jason and knew him to
be a lad of spirit. The mighty Hercules, whose shoulders afterward held
up the sky, was one of them. And there were Castor and Pollux, the twin
brothers, who were never accused of being chicken-hearted, although they
had been hatched out of an egg; and Theseus, who was so renowned for
killing the Minotaur; and Lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp eyes,
which could see through a millstone or look right down into the depths
of the earth and discover the treasures that were there; and Orpheus,
the very best of harpers, who sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly
that the brute beasts stood upon their hind legs and capered merrily to
the music. Yes, and at some of his more moving tunes the rocks bestirred
their moss-grown bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest trees
uprooted themselves and, nodding their tops to one another, performed a
country dance.

One of the rowers was a beautiful young woman named Atalanta, who had
been nursed among the mountains by a bear. So light of foot was this
fair damsel that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to the
foamy crest of another without wetting more than the sole of her sandal.
She had grown up in a very wild way and talked much about the rights of
women, and loved hunting and war far better than her needle. But in my
opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the
North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition),
who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff
out their cheeks and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I
ought not to forget the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were
several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen tomorrow,
or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite
unconscious of what was passing at the moment.

Jason appointed Tiphys to be helmsman, because he was a star-gazer and
knew the points of the compass. Lynceus, on account of his sharp sight,
was stationed as a lookout in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail
ahead, but was ra