As soon as they had eaten their morning meal and drunk some sparkling water from a spring called Hippocrene, Pegasus held out his head of his own accord so that his master might put on the bridle. Then, with a great many playful leaps and airy caperings, he showed his impatience to be gone, while Bellerophon was girding on his sword and hanging his shield about his neck and preparing himself for battle. When everything was ready, the rider mounted, and (as was his custom when going a long distance) ascended five miles perpendicularly, so as the better to see whither he was directing his course. He then turned the head of Pegasus toward the east, and set out for Lycia. In their flight they overtook an eagle, and came so nigh him, before he could get out of their way, that Bellerophon might easily have caught him by the leg. Hastening onward at this rate, it was still early in the forenoon when they beheld the lofty mountains of Lycia with their deep and shaggy valleys. If Bellerophon had been told truly, it was in one of those dismal valleys that the hideous Chimera had taken up its abode. Being now so near their journey's end, the winged horse gradually descended with his rider, and they took advantage of some clouds that were floating over the mountain tops in order to conceal themselves. Hovering on the upper surface of a cloud and peeping over its edge, Bellerophon had a pretty distinct view of the mountainous part of Lycia, and could look into all its shadowy vales at once. It was a wild, savage, and rocky tract of high and precipitous hills. In the more level part of the country there were ruins of burned houses, and here and there the carcasses of dead cattle strewn about the pastures where they had been feeding. "The Chimera must have done this mischief," thought Bellerophon. "But where can the monster be?" As I have already said, there was nothing remarkable to be detected at first sight in any of the valleys and dells that lay among the precipitous heights of the mountains--nothing at all, unless, indeed, it were three spires of black smoke which issued from what seemed to be the mouth of a cavern and clambered sullenly into the atmosphere. Before reaching the mountain top these three black smoke-wreaths mingled themselves into one. The cavern was almost directly beneath the winged horse and his rider, at the distance of about a thousand feet. The smoke, as it crept heavily upward, had an ugly, sulphurous, stifling scent which caused Pegasus to snort and Bellerophon to sneeze. So disagreeable was it to the marvelous steed (who was accustomed to breathe only the purest air) that he waved his wings and shot half a mile out of the range of this offensive vapor.