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 'Who are you?' cried the king, with a terrible frown. 'And how dare you make this disturbance while I am sacrificing a black bull to my father Neptune?'

'It is no fault of mine,' answered Jason. 'Your Majesty must blame the rudeness of your subjects, who have raised all this tumult because one of my feet happens to be bare.'

When Jason said this, the king gave a quick, startled glance down at his feet.

'Ha!' muttered he, 'here is the one-sandalled fellow, sure enough! What can I do with him?'

And he clutched more closely the great knife in his hand, as if he had half a mind to slay Jason instead of the black bull. The people round about caught up the king's words, indistinctly as they were uttered; and first there was a murmur among them, and then a loud shout.

'The one-sandalled man has come! The prophecy must be fulfilled!'

For you are to know that, many years before, King Pelias had been told by the Speaking Oak of Dodona, that a man with one sandal should cast him down from his throne. On this account he had given strict orders that nobody should ever come into his presence, unless both sandals were securely tied upon his feet; and he kept an officer in his palace, whose sole business it was to examine people's sandals, and to supply them with a new pair, at the expense of the royal treasury, as soon as the old ones began to wear out. In the whole course of the king's reign he had never been 207