ised, and Cheiron answered: "Speak harshly to no soul whom you
may meet, and stand by the word which you shall speak."

Jason wondered why Cheiron asked this of him; but he knew that the
Centaur was a prophet, and saw things long before they came. So he
promised, and leapt down the mountain, to take his fortune like a man.

He went down through the arbutus thickets, and across the downs of
thyme, till he came to the vineyard walls, and the pomegranates and the
olives in the glen; and among the olives roared Anauros, all foaming
with a summer flood.

And on the bank of Anauros sat a woman, all wrinkled gray, and old; her
head shook palsied on her breast, and her hands shook palsied on her
knees; and when she saw Jason, she spoke whining: "Who will carry me
across the flood?"

Jason was bold and hasty, and was just going to leap into the flood; and
yet he thought twice before he leapt, so loud roared the torrent down,
all brown from the mountain rains, and silver veined with melting snow;
while underneath he could hear the boulders rumbling like the tramp of
horsemen or the roll of wheels, as they ground along the narrow channel,
and shook the rocks on which he stood.

But the old woman whined all the more: "I am weak and old, fair youth.
For Hera's sake, carry me over the torrent."

And Jason was going to answer her scornfully, when Cheiron's words came
to his mind.

So he said: "For Hera's sake, the Queen of the Immortals on Olympus, I
will carry you over the torrent, unless we both are drowned midway."

Then the old dame leapt upon his back, as nimbly as a goat; and Jason
staggered in, wondering; and the first step was up to his knees.

The first step was up to his knees, and the second step was up to his
waist; and the stones rolled about his feet, and his feet slipped about
the stones; so he went on staggering and panting, while the old woman
cried from off his back:

"Fool, you have wet my mantle! Do you make game of poor old souls like
me?"

Jason had half a mind to drop her, and let her get through the torrent
by herself; but Cheiron's words were in his mind, and he said only:
"Patience, mother; the best horse may stumble some day."

At last he staggered to the shore, and set her down upon the bank; and a
strong man he needed to have been, or that wild water he never would
have crossed.

He lay panting awhile upon the bank, and then leapt up to go upon his
journey; but he cast one look at the old w