yed about the endless strand.

They embraced each other and they said farewell as they laid down upon
the sand that might blow upon them and overwhelm them in the night.
They wrapped their heads in their cloaks, and, fasting, they laid
themselves down.

Jason crouched beside the ship, so troubled that his life nearly went
from him. He saw Medea huddled against a rock and with her hair
streaming on the sand. He saw the men who, with all the bravery of
their lives, had come with him, stretched on the desert sand, weary and
without hope. He thought that they, the best of men, might die in this
desert with their deeds all unknown; he thought that he might never win
home with Medea, to make her his queen in Iolcus.

He lay against the side of the ship, his cloak wrapped around his head.
And there death would have come to him and to the others if the nymphs
of the desert had been unmindful of these brave men. They came to
Jason. It was midday then, and the fierce rays of the sun were
scorching all Libya. They drew off the cloak that wrapped his head;
they stood near him, three nymphs girded around with goatskins.

"Why art thou so smitten with despair?" the nymphs said to Jason. "Why
art thou smitten with despair, thou who hast wrought so much and hast
won so much? Up! Arouse thy comrades! We are the solitary nymphs, the
warders of the land of Libya, and we have come to show a way of escape
to you, the Argonauts.

"Look around and watch for the time when Poseidon's great horse shall
be unloosed. Then make ready to pay recompense to the mother that bore
you all. What she did for you all, that you all must do for her; by
doing it you will win back to the land of Greece." Jason heard them say
these words and then he saw them no more; the nymphs vanished amongst
the desert mounds.

Then Jason rose up. He did not know what to make out of what had been
told him, but there was courage now and hope in his heart. He shouted;
his voice was like the roar of a lion calling to his mate. At his shout
his comrades roused themselves; all squalid with the dust of the desert
the Argonauts stood around him.

"Listen, comrades, to me," Jason said, "while I speak of a strange
thing that has befallen me. While I lay by the side of our ship three
nymphs came before me. With light hands they drew away the cloak that
wrapped my head. They declared themselves to be the solitary nymphs,
the warders, of Libya. Very strange were the words they sa