THE CHIMERA: 203

how very large it looks, though it must really be flying
higher than the clouds! ”

“It makes me tremble!” whispered the child. “I
am afraid to look up into the air! It is very beautiful,
and yet I dare only look at its image in the water. Dear
Bellerophon, do you not see that it is no bird? It is the
winged horse Pegasus !”

Bellerophon’s heart began to throb! He gazed keenly
upward, but could not see the winged creature, whether
bird or horse; because, just then, it had plunged into
the fleecy depths of a summer cloud. It was but a
moment, however, before the object. reappeared, sinking
lightly down out of the cloud, although still at a vast
distance from the earth. Bellerophon caught the child.
in his arms, and shrank back with him, so that they were
both hidden among the thick shrubbery which grew all
around the fountam. Not that he was afraid of any
harm, but he dreaded lest, if Pegasus caught a glimpse
of them, he would fly far away, and alight in some inac-
cessible mountain-top. For it was really the winged
horse. After they had expected him so long, he was
coming to quench his thirst with the water of Pirene.

Nearer and nearer came the aerial wonder, flying in
great circles, as you may have seen a dove when about to
alight. Downward came Pegasus, in those wide, sweep-
ing circles, which grew narrower, and narrower still, as
he gradually approached the earth. The nigher the view
of him, the more beautiful he was, and the more marvel-
lous the sweep of his silvery wings. At last, with so.
light a pressure as hardly to bend the grass about the