9

34 THE GORGON’S HEAD.

amongst us three. You can find out such wonders better
than three blind old creatures, like us.”

Perseus, hearing them talk in this way, began really to
think that the Gray Women knew nothing of the mat-
ter; and, as it grieved him to have put them to so much
trouble, he was just on the point of restoring their eye
and asking pardon for his rudeness in snatching it away.
But Quicksilver caught his hand.

“Don’t let them make a fool of you!” said he.
“These Three Gray Women are the only persons in
the world that can tell you where to find the Nymphs;
and, unless you get that information, you will never
succeed in cutting off the head of Medusa with the
snaky locks. Keep fast hold of the eye, and all will go
well.”

As it turned out, Quicksilver was in the right. There
are but few things that people prize so much as they
do their eyesight; and the Gray Women valued their
single eye as Inghly as if it had been half a dozen,
which was the number they ought to have had. Find-
ing that there was no other. way of recovering it, they at
last told Perseus what he wanted to know. No sooner
had they done so, than he immediately, and with the ut-
most respect, clapped the eye into the vacant socket in
one of their foreheads, thanked them for their kindness,
and bade them farewell. Before the young man was out
of hearing, however, they had got into a new dispute,
because he happened to have given the eye to Scarecrow,
who had already taken her turn of it when their trouble
with Perseus commenced.