"Dost thou bleed, my immortal horse?" cried the young man, caring less
for his own hurt than for the anguish of this glorious creature, that
ought never to have tasted pain. "The execrable Chimaera shall pay for
this mischief with his last head!"
Then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly, and guided Pegasus, not
aslantwise as before, but straight at the monster's hideous front. So
rapid was the onset that it seemed but a dazzle and a flash before
Bellerophon was at close gripes with his enemy.
The Chimaera, by this time, after losing its second head, had got into a
red-hot passion of pain and rampant rage. It so flounced about, half on
earth and partly in the air, that it was impossible to say which element
it rested upon. It opened its snake jaws to such an abominable width,
that Pegasus might almost, I was going to say, have flown right down its
throat, wings outspread, rider and all! At their approach it shot out a
tremendous blast of its fiery breath, and enveloped Bellerophon and his
steed in a perfect atmosphere of flame, singeing the wings of Pegasus,
scorching off one whole side of the young man's golden ringlets, and
making them both far hotter than was comfortable, from head to foot.
But this was nothing to what followed.
When the airy rush of the winged horse had brought him within the
distance of a hundred yards, the Chimaera gave a spring, and flung its
huge, awkward, venomous, and utterly detestable carcass right upon poor
Pegasus, clung round him with might and main, and tied up its snaky tail
into a knot! Up flew the aerial steed, higher, higher, higher, above the
mountain-peak, above the clouds, and almost out of sight of the solid
earth.
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