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As he came roaring towards the shore, Perseus lifted the head of Medusa from his pouch and held it up; and when the beast saw the dreadful face he stopped short and was turned into stone; and men say that the stone beast may be seen in that selfsame spot to this day. Then Perseus slipped the Gorgon's head back into the pouch and hastened to speak with the young girl whom he had saved.
Perseus and his friends maintained for some time the unequal contest; but the numbers of the assailants were too great for them, and destruction seemed inevitable, when a sudden thought struck Perseus, "I will make my enemy defend me." Then with a loud voice he exclaimed, "If I have any friend here let him turn away his eyes!" and held aloft the Gorgon's head.
Whatever interest they felt in the fate of their captive chief was carefully concealed. The sun, now hanging, broad and red, low in the heavens might have been the Gorgon's head and the whole village staring at it. The Governor began to laugh. Sir Charles chimed in musically and Laramore followed suit.
This seemed to Perseus rather an odd beginning of the adventure; for he thought it of far more consequence that the shield should be strong enough to defend him from the Gorgon's brazen claws than that it should be bright enough to show him the reflection of his face.
They are of clearly different dates, though all very archaic. The oldest represent Perseus cutting off the Gorgon's head, and Hercules killing two thieves. Perseus has the calm, sleepy look of a Hindoo god, while Gorgon's head, with goggle eyes and protruding tongue, resembles a Mexican idol. Hercules and the thieves have more of an Egyptian character.
The former beheld to his astonishment the Colonel but just recovering from his first surprise, Lucy Bertram ready to faint with terror, and Miss Mannering in an agony of doubt and apprehension, which she in vain endeavoured to disguise or suppress. 'What is the meaning of all this? said he; 'has this young fellow brought the Gorgon's head in his hand? let me look at him.
The men sat transfixed with agony and dread, the women were caught in the wild clutches of hysteria, and Courtney himself was as if possessed with a frenzy: his features were rigid, his eyes dilated, and his hair rose and clung in wavy locks, so that he seemed a very Gorgon's head.
Out of the corner of his eye he was aware of her watching him, a baleful figure. He feared to employ the tenderness of tone necessary in his conversations with Chrystie, and as he listened and made out that she wanted to break her next engagement, he turned and fastened a gorgon's glance on the woman in the doorway, jerking his head in a gesture of dismissal.
"I never was here before, sir," said Stephen; "but yonder lies the Tower, and if we keep along by this dyke, it must lead us out somewhere." "Well said, boy, I must be moving, or the mud will dry on me, and I shall stand here as though I were turned to stone by the Gorgon's head! So have with thee! Go on first, master hawk-tamer. What will bear thee will bear me!"
Then he left his galley on the beach, and went up as of old; and he embraced his mother, and Dictys his good foster-father, and they wept over each other a long while, for it was seven years and more since they had met. Then Perseus went out, and up to the hall of Polydectes; and underneath the goat-skin he bore the Gorgon's head.
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