u do not bid Heracles come on board, and you would have the Argo
leave without him. You would leave Heracles here so that he may not be
with us on the quest where his glory might overshadow your glory,
Jason."

Jason said no word, but he sat back on his bench with head bowed. And
then, even as Telamon said these angry words, a strange figure rose up
out of the waves of the sea.

It was the figure of a man, wrinkled and old, with seaweed in his beard
and his hair. There was a majesty about him, and the Argonauts all knew
that this was one of the immortals--he was Nereus, the ancient one of
the sea.

"To Heracles, and to you, the rest of the Argonauts, I have a thing to
say," said the ancient one, Nereus. "Know, first, that Hylas has been
taken by the nymphs who love him and who think to win his love, and
that he will stay forever with them in their cold and glimmering cave.
For Hylas seek no more. And to you, Heracles, I will say this: Go
aboard the Argo again; the ship will take you to where a great labor
awaits you, and which, in accomplishing, you will work out the will of
Zeus. You will know what this labor is when a spirit seizes on you." So
the ancient one of the sea said, and he sank back beneath the waves.

Heracles went aboard the Argo once more, and he took his place on the
bench, the new oar in his hand. Sad he was to think that young Hylas
who used to sit at his knee would never be there again. The breeze
filled the sail, the Argonauts pulled at the oars, and in sadness they
watched the island where young Hylas had been lost to them recede from
their view.

VII. KING PHINEUS

Said Tiphys, the steersman: "If we could enter the Sea of Pontus, we
could make our way across that sea to Colchis in a short time. But the
passage into the Sea of Pontus is most perilous, and few mortals dare
even to make approach to it."

Said Jason, the chieftain of the host: "The dangers of the passage,
Tiphys, we have spoken of, and it may be that we shall have to carry
Argo overland to the Sea of Pontus. But You, Tiphys, have spoken of a
wise king who is hereabouts, and who might help us to make the
dangerous passage. Speak again to us, and tell us what the dangers of
the passage are, and who the king is who may be able to help us to make
these dangers less."

Then said Tiphys, the steersman of the Argo: "No ship sailed by mortals
has as yet gone through the passage that brings this sea into the Sea
of Pontus. In the