hem."

"I told you she would be the first to discover them," said Quicksilver
to Perseus. "And there they are!"

Straight downward, two or three thousand feet below him, Perseus
perceived a small island, with the sea breaking into white foam all
around its rocky shore, except on one side, where there was a beach of
snowy sand. He descended toward it, and looking earnestly at a cluster
or heap of brightness at the foot of a precipice of black rocks,
behold, there were the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep, soothed
by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would have
deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber.
The moonlight glistened on their steely scales and on their golden
wings, which drooped idly over the sand. Their brazen claws, horrible
to look at, were thrust out and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of
rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal
all to pieces. The snakes that served them instead of hair seemed
likewise to be asleep, although now and then one would writhe and
lift its head and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy
hiss, and then let itself subside among its sister snakes.

The Gorgons were more like an awful, gigantic kind of insect--immense,
golden-winged beetles or dragonflies or things of that sort--at once
ugly and beautiful--than like anything else; only that they were a
thousand and a million times as big. And with all this there was
something partly human about them, too. Luckily for Perseus, their
faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they
lay, for had he but looked one instant at them, he would have fallen
heavily out of the air, an image of senseless stone.

"Now," whispered Quicksilver as he hovered by the side of
Perseus--"now is your time to do the deed! Be quick, for if one of the
Gorgons should awake, you are too late!"

"Which shall I strike at?" asked Perseus, drawing his sword and
descending a little lower. "They all three look alike. All three have
snaky locks. Which of the three is Medusa?"

It must be understood that Medusa was the only one of these dragon
monsters whose head Perseus could possibly cut off. As for the other
two, let him have the sharpest sword that ever was forged, and he
might have hacked away by the hour together without doing them the
least harm.

"Be cautious," said the calm voice which had before spoken to him.
"One of the Gorgons is stirring