216 THE CHIMARA.

Then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly, and guided
Pegasus, not aslantwise 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 his enemy.

The Chimera, by this time, after losing its second
head, had got into a red-hot passion of pain and ram-
pant 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 en-
veloped Bellerophon and his steed in a perfect atmos-
phere 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 Chimera
gave a spring, and flang its huge, awkward, venomous,
and utterly detestable carcass right upon poor Pegasus,
clung round him with might and main, and tied up its
snaky tail into a knot! Up flew the aerial steed, high-
er, higher, higher, above the mountain-peaks, above the
clouds, and almost out of sight of the solid earth. But
still the earth-born monster kept its hald, and was borne.
upward, along with the creature of light and air. Bel-