on his back, with his four slender legs in the air. It was
beautiful to see him, this one solitary creature, whose mate had never
been created, but who needed no companion, and, living a great many
hundred years, was as happy as the centuries were long. The more he
did such things as mortal horses are accustomed to do, the less
earthly and the more wonderful he seemed. Bellerophon and the child
almost held their breath, partly from a delightful awe, but still more
because they dreaded lest the slightest stir or murmur should send
him up, with the speed of an arrow-flight, into the farthest blue of
the sky.

Finally, when he had had enough of rolling over and over, Pegasus
turned himself about, and, indolently, like any other horse, put out
his fore legs, in order to rise from the ground; and Bellerophon, who
had guessed that he would do so, darted suddenly from the thicket, and
leaped astride of his back.

Yes, there he sat, on the back of the winged horse!

But what a bound did Pegasus make, when, for the first time, he felt
the weight of a mortal man upon his loins! A bound, indeed! Before he
had time to draw a breath, Bellerophon found himself five hundred feet
aloft, and still shooting upward, while the winged horse snorted and
trembled with terror and anger. Upward he went, up, up, up, until he
plunged into the cold misty bosom of a cloud, at which, only a little
while before, Bellerophon had been gazing, and fancying it a very
pleasant spot. Then again, out of the heart of the cloud, Pegasus shot
down like a thunderbolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his
rider headlong against a rock. Then he went through about a thousand
of the wildest caprioles that had ever been performed either by a bird
or a horse.

I cannot tell you half that he did. He skimmed straight forward, and
sideways, and backward. He reared himself erect, with his fore legs on
a wreath of mist, and his hind legs on nothing at all. He flung out
his heels behind, and put down his head between his legs, with his
wings pointing right upward. At about two miles' height above the
earth, he turned a somerset, so that Bellerophon's heels were where
his head should have been, and he seemed to look down into the sky,
instead of up. He twisted his head about, and, looking Bellerophon in
the face, with fire flashing from his eyes, made a terrible attempt to
bite him. He fluttered his pinions so wildly that one of the silver
feathers was shaken ou