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Rh his kingdom. On the way, in crossing a torrent, he accidentally lost a sandal. Pelias had been warned by an oracle "to beware of the One-sandalled Man," and now the mysterious warning was to be fulfilled. Suddenly the youthful hero appeared in the market-place of his native town. His aspect is thus described by the poet:—

A hero dread, twin spears he bore, and twinfold guise of raiment wore,

For aptly to his wondrous limbs clove garb of Magnete clime,

Nor rains might pierce the pard-skin round him spread,

Nor his bright locks unshorn their bloom had shed,

But mantled round his shoulders broad! Swift to the market-place he strode,

And, testing all his dauntless mettle, stood

'Mid the gathering multitude."

The crowds gazed in wonder on such an apparition. Who could he be? Not Phœbus, surely, nor Ares. Was he some giant of old—Otus, Ephialtes, Tityus? Nay, they had perished long since. The mystery baffled all their surmises.

Suddenly, in hot haste, Pelias himself drove down from his palace—

—Then spied, and shuddering knew too well what single sandal bound

The youth's right foot."

However, he dissembled his fear, and in a tone of assumed mockery inquired the lineage of the illus-