steed with the other. On his part, Bellerophon
had mortally wounded the lion's head of the monster, insomuch that it
now hung downward, with its fire almost extinguished, and sending out
gasps of thick black smoke. The snake's head, however (which was the
only one now left), was twice as fierce and venomous as ever before. It
belched forth shoots of fire five hundred yards long, and emitted hisses
so loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing, that King Iobates heard them,
fifty miles off, and trembled till the throne shook under him.

"Well-a-day!" thought the poor king; "the Chimaera is certainly coming
to devour me!"

Meanwhile, Pegasus had again paused in the air, and neighed angrily,
while sparkles of a pure crystal flame darted out of his eyes. How
unlike the lurid fire of the Chimaera! The aerial steed's spirit was
all aroused, and so was that of Bellerophon.

"Dost thou bleed, my immortal horse?" cried the young man, caring less
for his own hurt than for the anguish of this glorious creature, that
ought never to have tasted pain. "The execrable Chimaera shall pay for
this mischief, with his last head!"

Then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly, and guided Pegasus, not
aslant-wise as before, but straight at the monster's hideous front. So
rapid was the onset, that it seemed but a dazzle and a flash, before
Bellerophon was at close gripes with the enemy.

The Chimaera, by this time, after losing its second head, had got into a
red-hot passion of pain and rampant rage. It so flounced about, half on
earth and partly in the air, that it was impossible to say which element
it rested upon. It opened its snake-jaws to such an abominable width,
that Pegasus might almost, I was going to say, have flown right down its
throat, wings outspread, rider and all? At their approach it shot out a
tremendous blast of its fiery breath, and enveloped Bellerophon and his
stead in a perfect atmosphere of flame, singeing the wings of Pegasus,
scorching off one whole side of the young man's golden ringlets, and
making them both far hotter than was comfortable, from head to foot.

But this was nothing to what followed.

When the airy rush of the winged horse had brought him within the
distance of a hundred yards, the Chimaera gave a spring, and flung its
huge, awkward, venomous, and utterly detestable carcase a right upon
poor Pegasus, clung round him with might and main, and tied up its snaky
tail into a knot! Up flew the aer