re 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 dragonflies 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
monsters whose head Perseus could possibly cut off. As for the other
two, let him have the sharpest sword that ever was forged, and he might
have hacked away by the hour together without doing them the least harm.

"Be cautious," said the calm voice which had before spoken to him. "One
of the Gorgons is stirring in her sleep and is just about to turn over.
That is Medusa. Do not look at her! The sight would turn you to stone!
Look at the reflection of her face and figure in the bright mirror of
your shield."

Perseus now understood Quicksilver's motive for so earnestly exhorting
him to polish his shield. In its surface he could safely look at the
reflection of the Gorgon's face. And there it was--that terrible
countenance--mirrored in the brightness of the shield, with the
m