第64章 THE GOLDEN FLEECE(10)

"There they are," said she, "reposing them.selves and chewing their fiery cuds in that farthest corner of the field.It will be excellent sport, I assure you, when they catch a glimpse of your figure.My father and all his court delight in nothing so much as to see a stranger trying to yoke them, in order to come at the Golden Fleece.It makes a holiday in Colchis whenever such a thing happens.For my part, I enjoy it immensely.You cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder.""Are you sure, beautiful Medea," asked Jason, "quite sure, that the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those terrible burns?""If you doubt, if you are in the least afraid," said the princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you had better never have been born than to go a step nigher to the bulls."But Jason had set his heart steadfastly on getting the Golden Fleece; and I positively doubt whether he would have gone back without it, even had he been certain of finding himself turned into a red-hot cinder, or a handful of white ashes, the instant he made a step farther.He therefore let go Medea's hand, and walked boldly forward in the direction whither she had pointed.

At some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing and again vanishing, after dimly lighting up the surrounding obscurity.These, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils, as they lay chewing their cuds.

At the first two or three steps which Jason made, the four fiery streams appeared to gush out somewhat more plentifully;for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot tramp, and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff the air.He went a little farther, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth, he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet.

Now he could see glowing sparks, and vivid jets of flame.At the next step, each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the whole field with a momentary flash.

One other stride did bold Jason make; and, suddenly as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery animals, roaring like thunder, and sending out sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every object more distinctly than by daylight.Most distinctly of all he saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls.Their breath scorched the herbage before them.So intensely hot it was, indeed, that it caught a dry tree under which Jason was now standing, and set it all in a light blaze.But as for Jason himself (thanks to Medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body, without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos.

Greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls.Just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of them by the horn, and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them in a gripe like that of an iron vice, one with his right hand, the other with his left.

Well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure.But the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them.

And, ever since that time, it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them, to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to gripe him by the tail is pretty much the same thing--that is, to throw aside fear, and overcome the peril by despising it.It was now easy to yoke the bulls, and to harness them to the plow, which had lain rusting on the ground for a great many years gone by; so long was it before anybody could be found capable of plowing that piece of land.Jason, I suppose, had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old Chiron, who, perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plow.At any rate, our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the greensward; and, by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky, the plowed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth.So Jason scattered them broadcast, and harrowed them into the soil with a brush-harrow, and took his stand on the edge of the field, anxious to see what would happen next.

"Must we wait long for harvest time?" he inquired of Medea, who was now standing by his side.