Once he came to a spot in the woods where he heard the sound of many soft footsteps dancing on the moss to the sound of merry piping. Orion stretched out his arms as he felt his way nearer to the Hamadryads, those gay creatures of the forest who played all day long with Pan and his tunes for company. "Can you, by any chance, direct me to Apollo who drives the chariot of the sun?" Orion asked. "Oh, no," the Hamadryads answered, scattering at the sight of the blind wayfarer. "We seldom see Apollo, for he doesn't like the music Pan plays on his pipes." So Orion stumbled on, and he heard in the course of his wanderings the clash and din of battle as two armies met in mortal combat on the edge of a city. War chariots crashed by him, and he heard the din of shield striking shield, and the groans of those heroes who fell wounded to death. "These fighters must know the way to take to the light," Orion thought and, sheltering himself from the combat beside a column that still stood, he cried out to one of the warriors, "Have you seen Apollo, driving the chariot of the sun, pass this way lately?" "No," the man replied. "Apollo avoids the battle field. We cannot direct you to the god of light." So Orion wandered on in his darkness until he came at last to the island of Lemnos and as he stumbled along a rocky road the sharp ringing of hammers beating on metal came to his ears. "There must be a smithy close by," Orion thought, "a place as black and ugly as the world my blindness makes for me. I have heard tales of the Cyclopes, with only one eye apiece, who spend all their lives under the mountains shaping thunderbolts at their forges. Their master is the ill-shaped Vulcan, the despised of the gods. There is little use in my following the sound of a hammer." But, against his will, Orion kept on. There was a call in the ringing of the hammer that drew him on faster than the merrymaking of Pan had, or the sound of battle. Before long the heat of the forge fire touching his face told Orion that he had reached the doorway of Vulcan's smithy at the foot of the mountain, and he asked again, "Can you tell me the way to Apollo, who drives the chariot of the sun?" How surprised he was to hear Vulcan reply, "Apollo is here. We are sending some forgings of gold to his palace and he will take you with him to the sun, blind Orion." That was a thrilling ride for Orion, away from the darkness he had walked in so long on the earth, and up along the road of stars that led to the sun. Apollo drove the chariot himself, and when they came to the stately gold columns that guarded the entrance to his palace, he told Orion to look straight at the blazing light of the sun. As he looked, Orion's blindness passed. He opened his eyes and could see again.