Agreeably to Medea's advice, Jason went betimes in the morning

to the palace of King Aetes. Entering the presence chamber, he
stood at the foot of the throne, and made a low obeisance.

"Your eyes look heavy, Prince Jason," observed the king; "you
appear to have spent a sleepless night. I hope you have been

considering the matter a little more wisely, and have concluded
not to get yourself scorched to a cinder, in attempting to tame

my brazen-lunged bulls."
"That is already accomplished, may it please your majesty,"

replied Jason. "The bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field
has been plowed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast,

and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors have
sprung up, and they have slain one another, to the last man.

And now I solicit your majesty's permission to encounter the
dragon, that I may take down the Golden Fleece from the tree,

and depart, with my nine and forty comrades."
King Aetes scowled, and looked very angry and excessively

disturbed; for he knew that, in accordance with his kingly
promise, he ought now to permit Jason to win the Fleece, if his

courage and skill should enable him to do so. But, since the
young man had met with such good luck in the matter of the

brazen bulls and the dragon's teeth, the king feared that he
would be equally successful in slaying the dragon. And

therefore, though he would gladly have seen Jason snapped up at
a mouthful, he was resolved (and it was a very wrong thing of

this wicked potentate) not to run any further risk of losing
his beloved Fleece.

"You never would have succeeded in this business, young man,"
said he, "if my undutiful daughter Medea had not helped you

with her enchantments. Had you acted fairly, you would have
been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white

ashes. I forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more
attempts to get the Golden Fleece. To speak my mind plainly,

you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening
locks."

Jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger. He
could think of nothing better to be done than to summon

together his forty-nine brave Argonauts, march at once to the
Grove of Mars, slay the dragon, take possession of the Golden

Fleece, get on board the Argo, and spread all sail for Iolchos.
The success of this scheme depended, it is true, on the

doubtful point whether all the fifty heroes might not be
snapped up, at so many mouthfuls, by the dragon. But, as Jason

was hastening down the palace steps, the Princess Medea called
after him, and beckoned him to return. Her black eyes shone

upon him with such a keen intelligence, that he felt as if
there were a serpent peeping out of them; and, although she had

done him so much service only the night before, he was by no
means very certain that she would not do him an equally great

mischief before sunset. These enchantresses, you must know, are
never to be depended upon.

"What says King Aetes, my royal and upright father?" inquired
Medea, slightly smiling. "Will he give you the Golden Fleece,

without any further risk or trouble?"
"On the contrary," answered Jason, "he is very angry with me

for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth. And
he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses

to give up the Golden Fleece, whether I slay the dragon or no."
"Yes, Jason," said the princess, "and I can tell you more.

Unless you set sail from Colchis before to-morrow's sunrise,
the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley, and put

yourself and your forty-nine brave comrades to the sword. But
be of good courage. The Golden Fleece you shall have, if it

lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you.
Wait for me here an hour before midnight."

At the appointed hour you might again have seen Prince Jason
and the Princess Medea, side by side, stealing through the

streets of Colchis, on their way to the sacred grove, in the
center of which the Golden Fleece was suspended to a tree.

While they were crossing the pasture ground, the brazen bulls
came towards Jason, lowing, nodding their heads, and thrusting

forth their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved to
have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand. Their fierce

nature was thoroughly tamed; and, with their fierceness, the
two furnaces in their stomachs had likewise been extinguished,

insomuch that they probably enjoyed far more comfort in grazing
and chewing their cuds than ever before. Indeed, it had

heretofore been a great inconvenience to these poor animals,
that, whenever they wished to eat a mouthful of grass, the fire

out of their nostrils had shriveled it up, before they could
manage to crop it. How they contrived to keep themselves alive

is more than I can imagine. But now, instead of emitting jets
of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor, they breathed the

very sweetest of cow breath.
After kindly patting the bulls, Jason followed Medea's guidance

into the Grove of Mars, where the great oak trees, that had
been growing for centuries, threw so thick a shade that the

moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it. Only
here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or

now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside, and gave Jason
a glimpse of the sky, lest, in that deep obscurity, he might

forget that there was one, overhead. At length, when they had
gone farther and farther into the heart of the duskiness, Medea

squeezed Jason's hand.
"Look yonder," she whispered. "Do you see it?"

Gleaming among the venerable oaks, there was a radiance, not
like the moonbeams, but rather resembling the golden glory of

the setting sun. It proceeded from an object, which appeared to
be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little

farther within the wood.
"What is it?" asked Jason.

"Have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed Medea, "and do you
not recognize the meed of all your toils and perils, when it

glitters before your eyes? It is the Golden Fleece."
Jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to

gaze. O, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvelous
light of its own, that inestimable prize which so many heroes

had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it,
either by the perils of their voyage, or by the fiery breath of

the brazen- lunged bulls.
"How gloriously it shines!" cried Jason, in a rapture. "It has

surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. Let me hasten
onward, and take it to my bosom."

"Stay," said Medea, holding him back. "Have you forgotten what
guards it?"

To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his
desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's

memory. Soon, however, something came to pass, that reminded
him what perils were still to be encountered. An antelope, that

probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding
fleetly through the grove. He was rushing straight towards the

Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and
the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon was