Part 16 (2/2)

They stood together, and the youth watched their blinking faces as they tried to discover who had come into the cave, and who had taken the eye and the tooth.

Then they said, screaming together: ”Who ever has taken the eye and the tooth from the Graiai, the ancient daughters of Phorcys, may Mother Night smother him.”

The youth spoke. ”Ancient daughters of Phorcys,” he said, ”Graiai, I would not rob from you. I have come to your cave only to ask the way to a place.”

”Ah, it is a mortal, a mortal,” screamed the sisters. ”Well, mortal, what would you have from the Graiai?”

”Ancient Graiai,” said the youth, ”I would have you tell me, for you alone know, where the nymphs dwell who guard the three magic treasures-the cap of darkness, the shoes of flight, and the magic pouch.”

”We will not tell you, we will not tell you that,” screamed the two ancient sisters.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

”I will keep the eye and the tooth,” said the youth, ”and I will give them to one who will help me.”

”Give me the eye and I will tell you,” said one. ”Give me the tooth and I will tell you,” said the other. The youth put the eye in the hand of one and the tooth in the hand of the other, but he held their skinny hands in his strong hands until they should tell him where the nymphs dwelt who guarded the magic treasures. The Gray Ones told him. Then the youth with the bright sword left the cave. As he went out he saw on the ground a s.h.i.+eld of bronze, and he took it with him.

To the other side of where Atlas stands he went. There he came upon the nymphs in their valley. They had long dwelt there, hidden from G.o.ds and men, and they were startled to see a stranger youth come into their hidden valley. They fled away. Then the youth sat on the ground, his head bent like a man who is very sorrowful.

The youngest and the fairest of the nymphs came to him at last. ”Why have you come, and why do you sit here in such great trouble, youth?” said she. And then she said: ”What is this strange sickle-sword that you wear?

Who told you the way to our dwelling place? What name have you?”

”I have come here,” said the youth, and he took the bronze s.h.i.+eld upon his knees and began to polish it, ”I have come here because I want you, the nymphs who guard them, to give to me the cap of darkness and the shoes of flight and the magic pouch. I must gain these things; without them I must go to my death. Why I must gain them you will know from my story.”

When he said that he had come for the three magic treasures that they guarded, the kind nymph was more startled than she and her sisters had been startled by the appearance of the strange youth in their hidden valley. She turned away from him. But she looked again and she saw that he was beautiful and brave looking. He had spoken of his death. The nymph stood looking at him pitifully, and the youth, with the bronze s.h.i.+eld laid beside his knees and the strange hooked sword lying across it, told her his story.

”I am Perseus,” he said, ”and my grandfather, men say, is king in Argos.

His name is Acrisius. Before I was born a prophecy was made to him that the son of Danae, his daughter, would slay him. Acrisius was frightened by the prophecy, and when I was born he put my mother and myself into a chest, and he sent us adrift upon the waves of the sea.

”I did not know what a terrible peril I was in, for I was an infant newly born. My mother was so hopeless that she came near to death. But the wind and the waves did not destroy us: they brought us to a sh.o.r.e; a shepherd found the chest, and he opened it and brought my mother and myself out of it alive. The land we had come to was Seriphus. The shepherd who found the chest and who rescued my mother and myself was the brother of the king. His name was Dictys.

”In the shepherd's wattled house my mother stayed with me, a little infant, and in that house I grew from babyhood to childhood, and from childhood to boyhood. He was a kind man, this shepherd Dictys. His brother Polydectes had put him away from the palace, but Dictys did not grieve for that, for he was happy minding his sheep upon the hillside, and he was happy in his little hut of wattles and clay.

”Polydectes, the king, was seldom spoken to about his brother, and it was years before he knew of the mother and child who had been brought to live in Dictys's hut. But at last he heard of us, for strange things began to be said about my mother-how she was beautiful, and how she looked like one who had been favored by the G.o.ds. Then one day when he was hunting, Polydectes the king came to the hut of Dictys the shepherd.

”He saw Danae, my mother, there. By her looks he knew that she was a king's daughter and one who had been favored by the G.o.ds. He wanted her for his wife. But my mother hated this harsh and overbearing king, and she would not wed with him. Often he came storming around the shepherd's hut, and at last my mother had to take refuge from him in a temple. There she became the priestess of the G.o.ddess.

”I was taken to the palace of Polydectes, and there I was brought up.

The king still stormed around where my mother was, more and more bent on making her marry him. If she had not been in the temple where she was under the protection of the G.o.ddess he would have wed her against her will.

”But I was growing up now, and I was able to give some protection to my mother. My arm was a strong one, and Polydectes knew that if he wronged my mother in any way, I had the will and the power to be deadly to him. One day I heard him say before his princes and his lords that he would wed, and would wed one who was not Danae. I was overjoyed to hear him say this.

He asked the lords and the princes to come to the wedding feast; they declared they would, and they told him of the presents they would bring.

”Then King Polydectes turned to me and he asked me to come to the wedding feast. I said I would come. And then, because I was young and full of the boast of youth, and because the king was now ceasing to be a terror to me, I said that I would bring to his wedding feast the head of the Gorgon.

”The king smiled when he heard me say this, but he smiled not as a good man smiles when he hears the boast of youth. He smiled, and he turned to the princes and lords, and he said: 'Perseus will come, and he will bring a greater gift than any of you, for he will bring the head of her whose gaze turns living creatures into stone.'

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