there was
really a man in the city by the name of Argus, who was a very skilful
builder of vessels. This showed some intelligence in the oak, else how
should it have known that any such person existed? At Jason's request
Argus readily consented to build him a galley so big that it should
require fifty strong men to row it, although no vessel of such a size
and burden had heretofore been seen in the world. So the head
carpenter and all his journeymen and apprentices began their work; and
for a good while afterward there they were busily employed hewing out
the timbers and making a great clatter with their hammers, until the
new ship, which was called the Argo, seemed to be quite ready for sea.
And as the Talking Oak had already given him such good advice, Jason
thought that it would not be amiss to ask for a little more. He
visited it again, therefore, and standing beside its huge, rough
trunk, inquired what he should do next.

This time there was no such universal quivering of the leaves
throughout the whole tree as there had been before. But after a while
Jason observed that the foliage of a great branch which stretched
above his head had begun to rustle as if the wind were stirring that
one bough, while all the other boughs of the oak were at rest.

"Cut me off!" said the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly;
"cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figurehead for your
galley."

Accordingly, Jason took the branch at its word and lopped it off the
tree. A carver in the neighborhood engaged to make the figurehead. He
was a tolerably good workman and had already carved several
figureheads in what he intended for feminine shapes, and looking
pretty much like those which we see nowadays stuck up under a vessel's
bowsprit, with great staring eyes that never wink at the dash of the
spray. But (what was very strange) the carver found that his hand was
guided by some unseen power and by a skill beyond his own, and that
his tools shaped out an image which he had never dreamed of. When the
work was finished it turned out to be the figure of a beautiful woman,
with a helmet on her head, from beneath which the long ringlets fell
down upon her shoulders. On the left arm was a shield and in its
center appeared a lifelike representation of the head of Medusa with
the snaky locks. The right arm was extended as if pointing onward. The
face of this wonderful statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so
grave and majes