Page:Little Ellie and Other Tales (1850).djvu/65

Rh only, one single drop, came trickling from his snow-white plumes. This drop fell upon the ship in which the king was sitting: it burnt itself into it, and weighing down the vessel like a thousand fothers of lead, it bore it with awful violence towards the earth.

The strong wings of the eagles were broken; the wind whistled round the head of the king; and the clouds around him, which were made of the smoke of the burnt cities, took the threatening form of griffins, many miles long, that stretched out their strong claws at him; or now they looked like rolling rocks and dragons vomiting fire.

The king lay half dead at the bottom of the ship, which was caught, at last, in the thick branches of the forest.

“I will conquer heaven,” said he. “I have sworn that I will, and it shall be done.”

So for the next seven years he had ships cleverly built for sailing through the air; he had flashes of lightning forged from the