Being now so near their journey’s end, the winged horse gradually descended with his rider; and they took advantage of some clouds that were floating over the mountain-tops, in order to conceal themselves.  Hovering on the upper surface of a cloud, and peeping over its edge, Bellerophon had a pretty distinct view of the mountainous part of Lycia, and could look into all its shadowy vales at once.  At first there appeared to be nothing remarkable.  It was a wild, savage, and rocky tract of high and precipitous hills.  In the more level part of the country, there were the ruins of houses that had been burnt, and, here and there, the carcasses of dead cattle, strewn about the pastures where they had been feeding.

“The Chimaera must have done this mischief,” thought Bellerophon.  “But where can the monster be?”

As I have already said, there was nothing remarkable to be detected, at first sight, in any of the valleys and dells that lay among the precipitous heights of the mountains.  Nothing at all; unless, indeed, it were three spires of black smoke, which issued from what seemed to be the mouth of a cavern, and clambered sullenly into the atmosphere.  Before reaching the mountain-top, these three black smoke wreaths mingled themselves into one.  The cavern was almost directly beneath the winged horse and his rider, at the distance of about a thousand feet.  The smoke, as it crept heavily upward, had an ugly, sulphurous, stifling scent, which caused Pegasus to snort and Bellerophon to sneeze.  So disagreeable was it to the marvellous steed (who was accustomed to breathe only the purest air), that he waved his wings, and shot half a mile out of the range of this offensive vapour.

But, on looking behind him, Bellerophon saw something that induced him first to draw the bridle, and then to turn Pegasus about.  He made a sign, which the winged horse understood, and sunk slowly through the air, until his hoofs were scarcely more than a man’s height above the rocky bottom of the valley.  In front, as far off as you could throw a stone, was the cavern’s mouth, with the three smoke wreaths oozing out of it.  And what else did Bellerophon behold there?

There seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible creatures curled up within the cavern.  Their bodies lay so close together that Bellerophon could not distinguish them apart; but, judging by their heads, one of these creatures was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, and the third an ugly goat.  The lion and the goat were asleep; the snake was broad awake, and kept staring around him with a great pair of fiery eyes.  But—­and this was the most wonderful part of the matter—­the three spires of smoke evidently issued from the nostrils of these three heads!  So strange was the spectacle, that, though Bellerophon had been all along expecting it, the truth did not immediately occur to him, that here was the terrible three-headed Chimaera.  He had found out the Chimaera’s cavern.  The snake, the lion, and the goat, as he supposed them to be, were not three separate creatures, but one monster!