e
until this day.

II

HOW JASON LOST HIS SANDAL

And ten years came and went, and Jason was grown to be a mighty man.

Now it happened one day that Jason stood on the mountain, and looked
north and south and east and west. And Cheiron stood by him and
watched him, for he knew that the time was come.

When Jason looked south, he saw a pleasant land, with white-walled
towns and farms nestling along the shore of a land-locked bay, while
the smoke rose blue among the trees, and he knew it for Iolcos by the
sea.

Then he sighed and asked, "Is it true what the heroes tell me--that I
am heir of that fair land?"

"And what good would it be to you, Jason, if you were heir of that
fair land?"

"I would take it and keep it."

"A strong man has taken it and kept it long. Are you stronger than
your uncle Pelias the Terrible?"

"I can try my strength with his," said Jason.

But Cheiron sighed and said, "You have many a danger to go through
before you rule in Iolcos by the sea, many a danger and many a woe,
and strange troubles in strange lands, such as man never saw before."

"The happier I," said Jason, "to see what man never saw before!"

Cheiron sighed and said, "Will you go to Iolcos by the sea? Then
promise me two things before you go! Speak harshly to no soul whom you
may meet, and stand by the word which you shall speak."

Jason promised. Then he leapt down the mountain, to take his fortune
like a man.

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

And on the bank of the river sat a woman, all wrinkled, gray and old.
Her head shook with old age, and her hands shook on her knees.

When she saw Jason, she spoke, whining, "Who will carry me across the
flood?"

But Jason, heeding her not, went towards the waters. Yet he thought
twice before he leapt, so loud roared the torrent all brown from the
mountain rains.

The old woman whined again, "I am weak and old, fair youth. For Hera's
sake, the Queen of the Immortals, carry me over the torrent."

Jason was going to answer her scornfully, when Cheiron's words, "Speak
harshly to no soul whom you may meet," came to his mind.

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

Then the old dame leapt upon his back as nimbl