Ah! the bull-headed villain! And O, my good little people, you
will perhaps see, one of these days, as I do now, that every
human being who suffers any thing evil to get into his nature,
or to remain there, is a kind of Minotaur, an enemy of his
fellow-creatures, and separated from all good companionship, as
this poor monster was.

Was Theseus afraid? By no means, my dear auditors. What! a hero
like Theseus afraid, Not had the Minotaur had twenty bull-heads
instead of one. Bold as he was, however, I rather fancy that it
strengthened his valiant heart, just at this crisis, to feel a
tremulous twitch at the silken cord, which he was still holding
in his left hand. It was as if Ariadne were giving him all her
might and courage; and much as he already had, and little as
she had to give, it made his own seem twice as much. And to
confess the honest truth, he needed the whole; for now the
Minotaur, turning suddenly about, caught sight of Theseus, and
instantly lowered his horribly sharp horns, exactly as a mad
bull does when he means to rush against an enemy. At the same
time, he belched forth a tremendous roar, in which there was
something like the words of human language, but all disjointed
and shaken to pieces by passing through the gullet of a
miserably enraged brute.

Theseus could only guess what the creature intended to say, and
that rather by his gestures than his words; for the Minotaur's
horns were sharper than his wits, and of a great deal more
service to him than his tongue. But probably this was the sense
of what he uttered: