id to me.
When Poseidon's great horse shall be unloosed, they said, we were to
make the mother of us all a recompense, doing for her what she had done
for us all. This the nymphs told me to say, but I cannot understand the
meaning of their words."

There were some there who would not have given heed to Jason's words,
deeming them words without meaning. But even as he spoke a wonder came
before their eyes. Out of the far-off sea a great horse leaped. Vast he
was of size and he had a golden mane. He shook the spray of the sea off
his sides and mane. Past them he trampled and away toward the horizon,
leaving great tracks in the sand.

Then Nestor spoke rejoicingly. "Behold the great horse! It is the horse
that the desert nymphs spoke of, Poseidon's horse. Even now has the
horse been unloosed, and now is the time to do what the nymphs bade us
do.

"Who but Argo is the mother of us all? She has carried us. Now we must
make her a recompense and carry her even as she carried us. With
untiring shoulders we must bear Argo across this great desert.

"And whither shall we bear her? Whither but along the tracks that
Poseidon's horse has left in the sand! Poseidon's horse will not go
under the earth--once again he will plunge into the sea!"

So Nestor said and the Argonauts saw truth in his saying. Hope came to
them again--the hope of leaving that desert and coming to the sea.
Surely when they came to the sea again, and spread the sail and held
the oars in their hands, their sacred ship would make swift course to
their native land!

VIII. THE CARRYING OUT OF THE ARGO

With the terrible weight of the ship upon their shoulders the Argonauts
made their way across the desert, following the tracks of Poseidon's
golden-maned horse. Like a rounded serpent that drags with pain its
length along, they went day after day across that limitless land.

A day came when they saw the great tracks of the horse no more. A wind
had come up and had covered them with sand. With the mighty weight of
the ship upon their shoulders, with the sun beating upon their heads,
and with no marks on the desert to guide them, the heroes stood there,
and it seemed to them that the blood must gush up and out of their
hearts.

Then Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind, rose up upon their wings
to strive to get sight of the sea. Up, up, they soared. And then as a
man sees, or thinks he sees, at the month's beginning, the moon through
a bank of clouds,