were busily employed hewing out the timbers
and making a great clatter with their hammers, until the new ship, which
was called the Argo, seemed to be quite ready for sea. And as the
Talking Oak had already given him such good advice, Jason thought that
it would not be amiss to ask for a little more. He visited it again,
therefore, and standing beside its huge, rough trunk, inquired what he
should do next.

This time there was no such universal quivering of the leaves throughout
the whole tree as there had been before. But after a while Jason
observed that the foliage of a great branch which stretched above his
head had begun to rustle as if the wind were stirring that one bough,
while all the other boughs of the oak were at rest.

"Cut me off!" said the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly;
"cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figurehead for your
galley."

Accordingly, Jason took the branch at its word and lopped it off the
tree. A carver in the neighborhood engaged to make the figurehead. He
was a tolerably good workman and had already carved several figureheads
in what he intended for feminine shapes, and looking pretty much like
those which we see nowadays stuck up under a vessel's bowsprit, with
great staring eyes that never wink at the dash of the spray. But (what
was very strange) the carver found that his hand was guided by some
unseen power and by a skill beyond his own, and that his tools shaped
out an image which he had never dreamed of. When the work was finished
it turned out to be the figure of a beautiful woman, with a helmet on
her head, from beneath which the long ringlets fell down upon her
shoulders. On the left arm was a shield and in its center appeared a
lifelike representation of the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. The
right arm was extended as if pointing onward. The face of this wonderful
statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so grave and majestic that
perhaps you might call it severe; and as for the mouth, it seemed just
ready to unclose its lips and utter words of the deepest wisdom.

Jason was delighted with the oaken image and gave the carver no rest
until it was completed and set up where a figurehead has always stood,
from that time to this, in the vessel's prow.

"And now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic face of
the statue, "I must go to the Talking Oak and inquire what next to do."

"There is no need of that, Jason," said a voice whic