laughed at it, long afterwards, though not pre-
cisely at the moment. After this, the two an-
tagonists stood valiantly up to one another, and
fought, sword to horn, for a Jong while. At
last, the Minotaur made a ran at Theseus,
grazed his left side with his horn, and flung him
down; and thinking that he had stabbed him to
the heart, he cut a great caper in the air, opened
his bull mouth from ear to ear, and prepared to
snap his head off. But Theseus by this time
had leaped up, and caught the monster off his
guard. Fetching a sword stroke at him with
all his force, he hit him fair upon the neck, and
made his bull head skip six yards from his hu-
man body, which fell down flat upon the ground.

So now the battle was ended. Immediately
the moon shone out as brightly as if all the
troubles of the world, and all the wickedness and
the ugliness that infest human life, were past
and gone forever. And Theseus, as he leaned
on his sword, taking breath, felt another twitch
of the silken cord; for all through the terrible
encounter, he had held it fast in his left hand.
Eager to let Ariadne know of his success,
he followed the guidance of the thread, and

[[64]]

p063 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p064w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p064a

v?