maidens. They stood with wreaths upon their heads and
blossoming branches in their hands. When the maidens saw him they came
toward him crying out: "O man who has come into the Garden of the
Hesperides, go not near the tree that the sleepless dragon guards!"
Then they went and stood by a tree as if to keep guard over it. All
around were trees that bore flowers and fruit, but this tree had golden
apples amongst its bright green leaves.

Then he saw the guardian of the tree. Beside its trunk a dragon lay,
and as Heracles came near the dragon showed its glittering scales and
its deadly claws.

The apples were within reach, but the dragon, with its glittering
scales and claws, stood in the way. Heracles shot an arrow; then a
tremor went through Ladon, the sleepless dragon; it screamed and then
lay stark. The maidens cried in their grief; Heracles went to the tree,
and he plucked the golden apples and he put them into the pouch he
carried. Down on the ground sank the Hesperides, the Daughters of the
Evening Land, and he heard their laments as he went from the enchanted
garden they had guarded.

Back from the ends of the earth came Heracles, back from the place
where Atlas stood holding the sky upon his weary shoulders. He went
back through Asia and Libya and Egypt, and he came again to Myceaae and
to the palace of Eurystheus.

He brought to the king the herd of Geryoneus; he brought to the king
the bull of Minos; he brought to the king the girdle of Hippolyte; he
brought to the king the golden apples of the Hesperides. And King
Eurystheus, with his thin white face, sat upon his royal throne and he
looked over all the wonderful things that the hero had brought him. Not
pleased was Eurystheus; rather was he angry that one he hated could win
such wonderful things.

He took into his hands the golden apples of the Hesperides. But this
fruit was not for such as he. An eagle snatched the branch from his
hand, and the eagle flew and flew until it came to where the Daughters
of the Evening Land wept in their garden. There the eagle let fall the
branch with the golden apples, and the maidens set it back upon the
tree, and behold! it grew as it had been growing before Heracles
plucked it.

The next day the heralds of Eurystheus came to Heracles and they told
him of the last labor that he would have to set out to accomplish--this
time he would have to go down into the Underworld, and bring up from
King Aidoneus's realm Cerberus