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On a platform, within full view of the balcony, sat the mighty King
Polydectes, amid his evil counsellors, and with his flattering courtiers
in a semicircle round about him. Monarch, counsellors, courtiers, and
subjects, all gazed eagerly towards Perseus.

“Show us the head! Show us the head!” shouted the people; and there was
a fierceness in their cry as if they would tear Perseus to pieces,
unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. “Show us the
head of Medusa with the snaky locks!”

A feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful Perseus.

“O King Polydectes,” cried he, “and ye many people, I am very loath to
show you the Gorgon’s head!”

“Ah, the villain and coward!” yelled the people, more fiercely than
before. “He is making game of us! He has no Gorgon’s head! Show us
the head, if you have it, or we will take your own head for a football!”

The evil counsellors whispered bad advice in the king’s ear; the
courtiers murmured, with one consent, that Perseus had shown disrespect
to their royal lord and master; and the great King Polydectes himself
waved his hand, and ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of
authority, on his peril, to produce the bead.

“Show me the Gorgon’s head, or I will cut off your own!”

And Perseus sighed.

“This instant,” repeated Polydectes, “or you die!”

“Behold it, then!” cried Perseus, in a voice like the blast of a
trumpet.

And, suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink before
the wicked King Polydectes, his evil counsellors, and all his fierce
subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of a monarch and
his people. They were all fixed, forever, in the look and attitude of
that moment! At the first glimpse of the terrible head of Medusa, they
whitened into marble! And Perseus thrust the head back into his wallet,
and went to tell his dear mother that she need no longer be afraid of
the wicked King Polydectes.

TANGLEWOOD PORCH.

AFTER THE STORY.

“Is not that a very fine story?” asked Eustace.

“O yes, yes!” cried Cowslip, clapping her hands. “And those funny old
women, with only one eye amongst them! I never heard of anything so
strange.”

“As to their one tooth, which they shifted about,” observed Primrose,
“there was nothing so very wonderful in that. I suppose it was a false
tooth. But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver, and talking
about his sister! You are too ridiculous!”

“And was she not his sister?” asked Eustace Bright. “If I had thought
of it sooner, I would have described her as a maiden lady, who kept a
pet owl!”

“Well, at any rate,” said Primrose, “your story seems to have driven
away the mist.”

And, indeed, while the tale was going forward, the vapors had been quite
exhaled from the landscape. A scene was now disclosed which the
spectators might almost fancy as having been created since they had last
looked in the direction where it lay. About half a mile distant, in the
lap of the valley, now appeared a beautiful lake, which reflected a
perfect image of its own wooded banks, and of the summits of the more
distant hills. It gleamed in glassy tranquillity, without the trace of
a winged breeze on any part of its bosom. Beyond its farther shore was
Monument Mountain, in a recumbent position, stretching almost across the
valley. Eustace Bright compared it to a huge, headless sphinx, wrapped
in a Persian shawl; and, indeed, so rich and diversified was the
autumnal foliage of its woods, that the simile of the shawl was by no
means too high-colored for the reality. In the lower ground, between
Tanglewood and the lake, the clumps of trees and borders of woodland
were chiefly golden-leaved or dusky brown, as having suffered more from
frost than the foliage on the hillsides.

Over all this scene there was a genial sunshine, intermingled with a
slight haze, which made it unspeakably soft and tender. O, what a day
of Indian summer was it going to be! The children snatched their
baskets, and set forth, with hop, skip, and jump, and all sorts of
frisks and gambols; while Cousin Eustace proved his fitness to preside
over the party, by outdoing all their antics, and performing several new
capers, which none of them could ever hope to imitate. Behind went a
good old dog, whose name was Ben. He was one of the most respectable
and kind-hearted of quadrupeds, and probably felt it to be his duty not
to trust the children away from their parents without some better
guardian than this feather-brained Eustace Bright.