Wonder Stories Part 5

The girl did not speak at first, trying to cover her face, but her hands were also chained. At last she explained to Perseus.

"I am Andromeda, the princess of Ethiopia," she said, "and I must be a sacrifice to the sea because my mother, Queen Ca.s.siopeia, has enraged the sea by comparing her beauty to that of the nymphs. I am offered here to appease the deities. Look, the monster comes!" she ended in a shriek.

Almost before she had finished speaking, a hissing sound could be heard on the surface of the water and the sea monster appeared with his head above the surf and cleaving the waves with his broad breast. The sh.o.r.e filled with people who loved Andromeda and shrieked their lamentations at the tragedy which was about to take place. The sea monster was in range of a cliff at last and Perseus, with a sudden bound of his winged feet, rose in the air.

He soared above the waters like an eagle and darted down upon this dragon of the sea. He plunged his sword into its shoulder, but the creature was only p.r.i.c.ked by the thrust and lashed the sea into such a fury that Perseus could scarcely see to attack him. But as he caught sight of the dragon through the mist of spray, Perseus pierced it between its scales, now in the side, then in the flank, and then in the head. At last the monster spurted blood from its nostrils. Perseus alighted on a rock beside Andromeda and gave it a death stroke. And the people who had gathered on the sh.o.r.e shouted with joy until the hills re-echoed their glad cries.

Like the prince of a fairy tale, Perseus asked for the fair Andromeda as his bride to reward him for this last victory over the sea, and his wish was granted. It seemed as if his tempestuous adventures were going to reach a peaceful ending as he took his bride. There was a banquet spread for the wedding feast in the palace of Andromeda's father and all was joy and festivity when there came a sound of warlike clamor from outside the gates. Phineas, a warrior of Ethiopia, who had loved Andromeda, but had not had the courage to rescue her from the terror of the sea, had arrived with his train to take her away from Perseus.

"You should have claimed her when she was chained to the rock," Perseus said. "You are a coward to attack us here with so overpowering an army."

Phineas made no reply but raised his javelin to hurl it at Perseus. The hero had a sudden thought to save him from destruction.

"Let my friends all depart, or turn away their eyes," he said, and he held aloft the hideous snaky head of the Gorgon.

His enemy's arm that held the javelin stiffened so that he could neither thrust it forward nor pull it back. His limbs became rigid, his mouth opened but no sound came from it. He and all his followers were turned to stone.

So Perseus was able to claim Andromeda as his bride after all, and they both had a great desire after a while to go to Argos and visit Perseus'

old grandfather, the king of that country who had been so afraid of a baby that he had sent his grandson drifting across the sea in a chest.

"I want to show him that he has nothing to fear from me," Perseus said.

It happened that they found the old king in a sad plight. He had been driven from the throne and was a prisoner of state. But Perseus slew the usurper and restored his grandfather to his rightful place.

In time, Perseus took the throne and his reign in Argos was so wise and kind that the G.o.ds at last made a place for him and beautiful Andromeda among the stars. You may see them on any clear night in the constellation of Ca.s.siopeia.

PEGASUS, THE HORSE WHO COULD FLY

A very strange thing happened when Perseus so heroically cut off the head of Medusa, the Gorgon. On the spot where the blood dripped into the earth from Perseus' sword there arose a slender limbed, wonderful horse with wings on his shoulders. This horse was known as Pegasus, and there was never, before or since, so marvellous a creature.

At that time, a young hero, Bellerophon by name, made a journey from his own country to the court of King Iobates of Lycia. He brought two sealed messages in a kind of letter of introduction from the husband of this king's daughter, one of Bellerophon's own countrymen. The first message read,

"The bearer, Bellerophon, is an unconquerable hero. I pray you welcome him with all hospitality."

The second was this,

"I would advise you to put Bellerophon to death."

The truth of the matter was that the son-in-law of King Iobates was jealous of Bellerophon and really desired to have him put out of the way in order to satisfy his own ambitions.

The King of Lycia was at heart a friendly person and he was very much puzzled to know how to act upon the advice in the letter introducing Bellerophon. He was still puzzling over the matter when a dreadful monster, known as the Chimaera, descended upon the kingdom. It was a beast far beyond any of mortal kind in terror. It had a goat's rough body and the tail of a dragon. The head was that of a lion with wide spreading nostrils which breathed flames and a gaping throat that emitted poisonous breath whose touch was death. As the subjects of King Iobates appealed to him for protection from the Chimaera a sudden thought came to him. He decided to send the heroic stranger, Bellerophon, to meet and conquer the beast.

The hero had expected a period of rest at the court of Lycia. He had looked forward to a feast that might possibly be given in his honor and a chance to show his skill in throwing the discus and driving a chariot at the court games. But the day after Bellerophon arrived at the palace of King Iobates, he was sent out to hunt down and kill the Chimaera.

He had not the slightest idea where he was to go, and neither had he any plan for destroying the creature, but he decided that it would be a good plan to spend the night in the temple of Minerva before he met the danger face to face. Minerva was the G.o.ddess of wisdom and might give him help in his hopeless adventure.

So Bellerophon journeyed to Athens, the chosen city of Minerva, and tarried for a night in her temple there, so weary that he fell asleep in the midst of his supplications to the G.o.ddess. But when he awoke in the morning, he found a golden bridle in his hands, and he heard a voice directing him to hasten with it to a well outside of the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Bellerophon took the golden reins firmly in his hand."]

Pegasus, the winged horse, had been pasturing meanwhile in the meadows of the Muses. There were nine of these Muses, all sisters and all presiding over the arts of song and of memory. One took care of poets and another of those who wrote history. There was a Muse of the dance, of comedy, of astronomy, and in fact of whatever made life more worth while in the sight of the G.o.ds. They needed a kind of dream horse like Pegasus with wings to carry them on his back to Mount Olympus whenever they wanted to return from the earth.

Bellerophon had never known of the existence even of Pegasus, but when he reached the well to which the oracle had directed him, there stood Pegasus, or, rather, this horse of the Muses poised there, for his wings buoyed him so that his hoofs could scarcely remain upon the earth. When Pegasus saw the golden bridle that the G.o.ddess of Wisdom had given Bellerophon, he came directly up to the hero and stood quietly to be harnessed. A dark shadow crossed the sky just then; the dreaded Chimaera hovered over Bellerophon's head, its fiery jaws raining sparks down upon him.

Bellerophon mounted upon Pegasus and took the golden reins firmly in one hand as he brandished his sword in the other. He rose swiftly in the air and met the ravening creature in a fierce battle in the clouds. Not for an instant did the winged horse falter, and Bellerophon killed the Chimaera easily. It was a great relief to the people of Lycia, and indeed to people of all time. You may have heard of a Chimaera. It means nowadays any kind of terror that is not nearly so hard to conquer as it seemed in the beginning when people were afraid of it.

This story ought to end with the hero returning his winged steed to the Muses and entering the kingdom of Lycia in great triumph, but something very different happened. Bellerophon decided to keep Pegasus, and he rode him so long and so hard that he grew very full of pride and presumption in his success. One day Bellerophon made up his mind to drive Pegasus to the gates of the G.o.ds in the sky which was too great an ambition for a mortal who had received no invitation as yet from the dwellers on Mount Olympus. Jupiter saw this rider of the skies mounting higher and higher and he became very angry with him. He sent a gadfly which stung Pegasus and made him throw Bellerophon to the earth. He was always lame and blind after that.

It really had not been the fault of Pegasus at all. He was only the steed of those who followed dreams, even if he did have wings. When his rider fell, Pegasus fell too, and he landed unhurt but a long distance from his old pastures. He did not know in which direction they lay or how to find the road that led back to his friends, the Muses. Pegasus'

wings seemed to be of no use to him. He roamed from one end of the country to the other, driven from one field to the next by the rustics who mistook him for some sort of a dragon because of his wings. He grew old and lost his fleetness. It even seemed to him that his wings were nothing but a dragging weight and that he would never be able to use them again.

Finally the same thing happened to Pegasus that happens to old horses to-day that have enjoyed a wonderful youth as racers. He was sold to a farmer and fastened to a plough.

Pegasus was not used to this heavy work of the soil; his strength was better suited to climbing through the air than plodding along the surface of the earth. He used all the strength he could put forth in pulling the plough, but his wings dragged and were in the way and his master beat his aching back with an ox whip. That might have been the end of this winged horse, but one day good fortune came to him.

There was a youth pa.s.sing by who was beloved of the Muses. He was so poor that he had often no other shelter than the woods and hedges afforded, or any food save wild fruits and the herbs of the field. But this youth could put the beauties of the earth, its hills and valleys, its temples, flowers, and the desires and loves of its people into words that sang together as the notes of a lute sang. He was a young poet.

The poet felt a great compa.s.sion for the horse he saw in the field, bent low under the blows of his clownish master, and with wings dragging and tattered.

"Let me try to drive your horse," he begged, crossing the field and mounting upon Pegasus' back.

It was suddenly as if one of the G.o.ds were riding Pegasus. He lifted his head high, and his heavy feet left the clods of earth. His wings straightened and spread wide. Carrying the youth, Pegasus arose through the air as the country people gathered from all the neighboring farms to watch the wonder, a winged horse with a flowing golden mane rising and then hidden within the clouds that opened upon Mount Olympus.

HOW MARS LOST A BATTLE

Terminus was the G.o.d of boundaries, and a kind of picnic was being held in his honor one day in the long-ago myth time on the edge of a little Roman town.

No one had ever really seen Terminus but every farmer who owned a few acres of land, and the men who governed the cities were quite sure as to how he looked. It was likely that he wore such garb as did Pan, they had decided, and carried instruments for measuring similar to those that a surveyor uses to-day. His chariot was loaded with large stones and finely chiselled posts for marking the limits of a man's farm, or that of a town. There were no fences in those days, but the G.o.ds had appointed Terminus to protect land holders and to safeguard citizens by keeping all boundaries sacred from invasion by an enemy.

No wonder the Terminalia, as they called this holiday, was a joyous time. All through the neighboring vineyards and fields and on the edge of the village stones had been placed to mark the boundaries, and there were stone pillars, also, having carved heads to make them beautiful.

Everyone who came to the picnic brought an offering for the G.o.d Terminus, a wreath of bright roses, a garland of green laurel, or a basket of grapes and pomegranates which they placed on one of these boundary stones or posts. The law of the G.o.ds that prevented invasion was the greatest blessing these people had, for it made them free to till the earth and build homes and keep their hearth fires burning.

Suddenly the merrymaking was interrupted. The children who had been gathering wild flowers ran, crying, to their fathers and mothers, for the sky was darkened in an instant as if a hurricane was approaching.

The young men who had been playing games and the maidens who had been dancing huddled together in frightened groups, for they saw between rifts in the clouds the tracks of dark chariot wheels making their swift way down to earth from the sky. And the older folk, who knew the meaning of the rumblings and dull roar and occasional darts of fire that parted the clouds, shuddered.

"See who stands in our midst in his black cloak, scattering h.o.a.r frost that blights the fields and freezes us!" they exclaimed. "It is Dread, the courier of Mars, the G.o.d of war, who is approaching in his chariot."

There came dreadful sounds soon that almost drowned the voices of the people, the cras.h.i.+ng of swords and s.h.i.+elds, and the cries of women and little children as a chariot plunged through their midst, its wheels dripping with blood. It was driven by two other attendants of war, Alarm and Terror, the face of one as dark as a thunder cloud, and the other with a countenance as pale as death.

"What shall we do; we are unarmed and will perish?" one man cried. And another answered him.