and rustle, as if a gentle breeze were wandering
amongst them, although the other trees of the
wood were perfectly still. The sound grew
louder, and became like the roar of a high
wind. By and by, Jason imagined that he could
distinguish words, but very confusedly, because
each separate leaf of the tree seemed to be a
tongue, and the whole myriad of tongues were
babbling at once. But the noise waxed broader
and deeper, until it resembled a tornado sweep-
ing through the oak, and making one great
utterance out of the thousand and thousand of
little murmurs which each leafy tongue had
caused by its rustling. And now, though it still
had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among
the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice,
speaking, as distinctly as a tree could be ex-
pected to speak, the following words: --

"Go to Argus, the ship builder, and bid him
build a galley with fifty oars."

Then the voice melted again into the indis-
tinct murmur of the rustling leaves, and died
gradually away. When it was quite gone, Ja-
son felt inclined to doubt whether he had ac-
tually heard the words, or whether his fancy had

[[291]]

p290 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p291w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p292

v?