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 'Have you come so far to seek it,' exclaimed Medea, 'and do you not recognise the meed of all your toils and perils, when it glitters before your eyes? It is the Golden Fleece.'

Jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to gaze. Oh, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvellous light of its own, that inestimable prize, which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it, either by the perils of their voyage, or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls.

'How gloriously it shines!' cried Jason, in a rapture. 'It has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. Let me hasten onward, and take it to my bosom.'

'Stay,' said Medea, holding him back. 'Have you forgotten what guards it?'

To say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of Jason's memory. Soon, however, something came to pass, that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered. An antelope, that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding fleetly through the grove. He was rushing straight towards the Golden Fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon was thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws. 242