rocks, behold, there were the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep,
soothed by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would
have deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber.
The moonlight glistened on their steely scales, and on their golden
wings, which drooped idly over the sand. Their brazen claws, horrible
to look at, were thrust out, and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of
rock, while the sleeping Gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all
to pieces. The snakes that served them instead of hair seemed likewise
to be asleep; although, now and then, one would writhe, and lift its
head, and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, and then
let itself subside among its sister snakes.

The Gorgons were more like an awful, gigantic kind of insect,--immense,
golden-winged beetles, or dragon-flies, or things of that sort,--at once
ugly and beautiful,--than like anything else; only that they were a
thousand and a million times as big. And, with all this, there was
something partly human about them, too. Luckily for Perseus, their
faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they lay;
for, had he but looked one instant at them, he would have fallen heavily
out of the air, an image of senseless stone.

"Now," whispered Quicksilver, as he hovered by the side of Perseus,--
"now is your time to do the deed! Be quick; for, if one of the Gorgons
should awake, you are too late!"

"Which shall I strike at?" asked Perseus, drawing his sword and
descending a little lower. "They all three look alike. All three have
snaky locks. Which of the three is Medusa?"

It must be understood that Medusa was the only one of these dragon-