Medusa tossed to and fro restlessly in her sleep. Her long neck gleamed so white in the mirror that Perseus had not the heart to strike. But as he looked, from among her tresses the vipers' heads awoke and peeped up, with their bright dry eyes, and showed their fangs and hissed. And Medusa as she tossed showed her brazen claws, and Perseus saw that for all her beauty she was as ugly as the others.
Then he came down and stepped to her boldly, and looked steadfastly on his mirror, and struck with his sword stoutly once, and he did not need to strike again.
He wrapped the head in the goat-skin, turning away his eyes, and sprang into the air aloft, faster than he ever sprang before.
And well his brave sandals bore him through cloud and sunshine across the shoreless sea, till he came again to the gardens of the fair maidens.
Then he asked them, "By what road shall I go homeward again?"
And they wept and cried, "Go home no more, but stay and play with us, the lonely maidens."
But Perseus refused and leapt down the mountain, and went on like a sea-gull, away and out to sea.
IV
HOW PERSEUS MET ANDROMEDA
So Perseus flitted onward to the north-east, over many a league of sea, till he came to the rolling sandhills of the desert.