Favorite Greek Myths (Yesterday's Classics) by Lilian Stoughton Hyde Page B

directions. Then he saw a drop of blood fall from the pouch where he carried the Medusa's head, and as it struck the hot sands it became a snake like the rest he had seen, and went crawling away to find some dark hole. Soon another drop of blood fell, and this, too, became a snake. It was plain, now, where all the snakes had come from. That desert is said to be infested with snakes to this day.
    After this he began to come to inhabited countries, and he rose higher and flew more swiftly, for he hoped soon to reach Seriphus and set his mother free.
    Now it had happened, not very long before the adventure of Perseus with the Medusa, that in a certain country, ruled over by King Cepheus, the people were greatly frightened by the appearance, on their coasts, of a terrible sea-monster—a huge, scaly creature, with wings like a dragon and a tail like a fish. It must have been a kind of sea-serpent. When the fisherman's little children were playing on the beach, it used to come rushing in from the sea with a great roar, seize a child in its jaws, and carry it off.
    The people had shot at it with their bows and arrows, but the arrows had glanced off from its hard scales and fallen harmlessly into the water. Then they had tried to set a net and catch it in that way; but when the great creature found itself entangled, it bit at the cords with its teeth, and lashed about furiously with its tail, till it broke away and went off with what was left of the net clinging to its back.
    When this happened, an old priest stepped forward, out of the crowd by the shore, and said that it was of no use for the people to fight with this sea-monster because, undoubtedly, it had been sent by one of the gods.
    King Cepheus had a very beautiful daughter. The queen boasted that this daughter, whose name was Andromeda, was even more beautiful than the Nereids, that is, the daughters of the sea-god Nereus. These daughters of Nereus, of whom there were fifty, lived close by in the sea, where they were sometimes seen driving chariots drawn by dolphins. All were beautiful, and one, Galatea, was famous for her beauty.
    So this old priest was sure that Nereus himself had sent this sea-monster, and he said it would never go away unless the king caused Andromeda to be chained to a rock, at the edge of the water, and to be left there until the monster took her for its prey.
    These were terrible words for the king and queen to hear. They attempted to take Andromeda away and hide her in the palace; but they were prevented from doing so by the people, who, rushing in between them and the palace gates, took Andromeda, themselves, bound her with chains, and then fastened her to a great rock, where at high tide the water would come in and lap against her feet. There they left her, and the king and queen did not dare to come to her rescue.
    Andromeda did not know what she had done to deserve such a cruel fate. As she stood there with her hands chained, she thought of all the fearful tales she had heard of the sea-monster, and her face grew almost as white as the foam that the little waves had already begun to toss to her feet. She bent her head, and closed her eyes, to shut out what she feared to see, and the tears rolled down her cheeks and fell into the water. Then she heard the sound of wings above her, and suddenly looked up, expecting some new danger, but could see nothing whatever. There was a rush of wings, again, close to her, and something tapped against the rocks. Then, all at once, she saw, standing before her, a golden-haired young man, with a plumed helmet in his hand, gold wings on his sandals, and a kind of hunting-bag, with something heavy in it, hung over his shoulder. This of course was Perseus, but Andromeda thought it must be some god straight from the sky. When Perseus asked her why she had been chained to the rock, she gladly told him everything.
    In the midst of Andromeda's story, and while Perseus was trying the keen edge of his crooked sword,