waved his wings, and shot half a
mile out of the range of this offensive vapour.

But, on looking behind him, Bellerophon saw something that induced him
first to draw the bridle, and then to turn Pegasus about. He made a
sign, which the winged horse understood, and sunk slowly through the
air, until his hoofs were scarcely more than a man's height above the
rocky bottom of the valley. In front, as far off as you could throw a
stone, was the cavern's mouth, with the three smoke wreaths oozing out
of it. And what else did Bellerophon behold there?

There seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible creatures curled up
within the cavern. Their bodies lay so close together that Bellerophon
could not distinguish them apart; but, judging by their heads, one of
these creatures was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, and the
third an ugly goat. The lion and the goat were asleep; the snake was
broad awake, and kept staring around him with a great pair of fiery
eyes. But--and this was the most wonderful part of the matter--the three
spires of smoke evidently issued from the nostrils of these three heads!
So strange was the spectacle, that, though Bellerophon had been all
along expecting it, the truth did not immediately occur to him, that
here was the terrible three-headed Chimaera. He had found out the
Chimaera's cavern. The snake, the lion, and the goat, as he supposed them
to be, were not three separate creatures, but one monster!

The wicked, hateful thing! Slumbering as two-thirds of it were, it still
held, in its abominable claws, the remnant of an unfortunate lamb--or
possibly (but I hate to think so) it was a dear little boy--which its
three mouths had been gnawing, before two of them fell asleep!

All at once, Bellerophon started as from a dream, and knew it to be the
Chimaera. Pegasus seemed to know it, at the same instant, and sent forth
a neigh that sounded like the call of a trumpet to battle. At this sound
the three heads reared themselves erect, and belched out great flashes
of flame. Before Bellerophon had time to consider what to do next, the
monster flung itself out of the cavern and sprung straight toward him,
with its immense claws extended, and its snaky tail twisting itself
venomously behind. If Pegasus had not been as nimble as a bird, both he
and his rider would have been overthrown by the Chimaera's headlong rush,
and thus the battle have been ended before it was well begun. But the
winged horse was