e!"

"I go," answered Jason composedly. "If I fail, you need not fear that
I will ever come back to trouble you again. But if I return to Iolchos
with the prize, then, King Pelias, you must hasten down from your
lofty throne and give me your crown and scepter."

"That I will," said the king, with a sneer. "Meantime I will keep them
very safely for you."

The first thing that Jason thought of doing after he left the king's
presence was to go to Dodona and inquire of the Talking Oak what
course it was best to pursue. This wonderful tree stood in the center
of an ancient wood. Its stately trunk rose up a hundred feet into the
air and threw a broad and dense shadow over more than an acre of
ground. Standing beneath it, Jason looked up among the knotted
branches and green leaves and into the mysterious heart of the old
tree, and spoke aloud, as if he were addressing some person who was
hidden in the depths of the foliage.

"What shall I do," said he, "in order to win the Golden Fleece?"

At first there was a deep silence, not only within the shadow of the
Talking Oak, but all through the solitary wood. In a moment or two,
however, the leaves of the oak began to stir and rustle as if a gentle
breeze were wandering among them, although the other trees of the wood
were perfectly still. The sound grew louder and became like the roar
of a high wind. By and by Jason imagined that he could distinguish
words, but very confusedly, because each separate leaf of the tree
seemed to be a tongue and the whole myriad of tongues were babbling at
once. But the noise waxed broader and deeper until it resembled a
tornado sweeping through the oak and making one great utterance out of
the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue
had caused by its rustling. And now, though it still had the tone of a
mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass
voice speaking, as distinctly as a tree could be expected to speak,
the following words:

"Go to Argus, the shipbuilder, and bid him build a galley with fifty
oars."

Then the voice melted again into the indistinct murmur of the rustling
leaves and died gradually away. When it was quite gone Jason felt
inclined to doubt whether he had actually heard the words or whether
his fancy had not shaped them out of the ordinary sound made by a
breeze while passing through the thick foliage of the tree.

But on inquiry among the people of Iolchos, he found that