There were some there who would not have given heed to Jason’s words, deeming them words without meaning. But even as he spoke a wonder came before their eyes. Out of the far-off sea a great horse leaped. Vast he was of size and he had a golden mane. He shook the spray of the sea off his sides and mane. Past them he trampled and away toward the horizon, leaving great tracks in the sand. Then Nestor spoke rejoicingly. “Behold the great horse! It is the horse that the desert nymphs spoke of, Poseidon’s horse. Even now has the horse been unloosed, and now is the time to do what the nymphs bade us do. “Who but _Argo_ is the mother of us all? She has carried us. Now we must make her a recompense and carry her even as she carried us. With untiring shoulders we must bear _Argo_ across this great desert. “And whither shall we bear her? Whither but along the tracks that Poseidon’s horse has left in the sand! Poseidon’s horse will not go under the earth—once again he will plunge into the sea!” So Nestor said and the Argonauts saw truth in his saying. Hope came to them again—the hope of leaving that desert and coming to the sea. Surely when they came to the sea again, and spread the sail and held the oars in their hands, their sacred ship would make swift course to their native land! VIII. The Carrying of the Argo [Decorative first letter] _W_ITH the terrible weight of the ship upon their shoulders the Argonauts made their way across the desert, following the tracks of Poseidon’s golden-maned horse. Like a wounded serpent that drags with pain its length along, they went day after day across that limitless land. A day came when they saw the great tracks of the horse no more. A wind had come up and had covered them with sand. With the mighty weight of the ship upon their shoulders, with the sun beating upon their heads, and with no marks on the desert to guide them, the heroes stood there, and it seemed to them that the blood must gush up and out of their hearts. [Illustration] Then Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind, rose up upon their wings to strive to get sight of the sea. Up, up, they soared. And then as a man sees, or thinks he sees, at the month’s beginning, the moon through a bank of clouds, Zetes and Calais, looking over the measureless land, saw the gleam of water. They shouted to the Argonauts; they marked the way for them, and wearily, but with good hearts, the heroes went upon the way. They came at last to the shore of what seemed to be a wide inland sea. They set _Argo_ down from off their over-wearied shoulders and they let her keel take water once more. All salt and brackish was that water; they dipped their hands into and tasted the salt. Orpheus was able to name the water they had come to; it was that lake that was called after Triton, the son of Nereus, the ancient one of the sea. They set up an altar and they made sacrifices in thanksgiving to the gods.