912. THE CHIMARA.

thing that induced him first to draw the bridle, and then
to turn Pegasus about. He made a sign, which the
winged horse understood, and sunk slowly through the
air, until his hoofs were scarcely more than a man’s height
above the rocky bottom of the valley. In front, as far
off as you could throw a stone, was the cavern’s mouth,
with the three smoke-wreaths oozing out of it. And
what else did Bellerophon behold there ?

There seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible
creatures curled up within the cavern. Their bodies lay
so close together, that Bellerophon could not distinguish
them apart; but, judging by their heads, one of these
creatures was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, and
the third an ugly goat. The lion and the goat were
asleep; the snake was broad awake, and kept staring
around him with a great pair of fiers eyes. But— and
this was the most wonderful part of the matter — the
three spires of smoke evidently issued from the nostrils
of these three heads! So strange was the spectacle,
that, though Bellerophon had been all along expecting
it, the truth did not immediately occur to him, that here
was the terrible three-headed Chimera. He had found
out the Chimera’s cavern. The snake, the lion, and the
goat, as he supposed them to be, were not three sepa-
rate creatures, but one monster! ;

The wicked, hateful thing! Slumbering as two thirds
of it were, it still held, in its abominable claws, the rem-
nant of an unfortunate lamb, — or possibly (but I hate to
think so) it was a dear little boy, —which its three
mouths had been gnawing, before two of them fell
asleep !