, a little way from the temple, he
saw the white walls of the palace of the king.

When Theseus entered the city and went walking up the street everybody
wondered who the tall, fair youth could be. But the fame of his deeds
had gone before him, and soon it was whispered that this was the hero
who had slain the robbers in the mountains and had wrestled with Cercyon
at Eleusis and had caught Procrustes in his own cunning trap.

"Tell us no such thing!" said some butchers who were driving their
loaded carts to market. "The lad is better suited to sing sweet songs to
the ladies than to fight robbers and wrestle with giants."

"See his silken black hair!" said one.

"And his girlish face!" said another.

"And his long coat dangling about his legs!" said a third.

"And his golden sandals!" said a fourth.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the first; "I wager that he never lifted a ten-pound
weight in his life. Think of such a fellow as he hurling old Sciron from
the cliffs! Nonsense!"

Theseus heard all this talk as he strode along, and it angered him not a
little; but he had not come to Athens to quarrel with butchers. Without
speaking a word he walked straight up to the foremost cart, and, before
its driver had time to think, took hold of the slaughtered ox that was
being hauled to market, and hurled it high over the tops of the houses
into the garden beyond. Then he did likewise with the oxen in the
second, the third, and the fourth wagons, and, turning about, went on
his way, and left the wonder-stricken butchers staring after him,
speechless, in the street.

He climbed the stairway which led to the top of the steep, rocky hill,
and his heart beat fast in his bosom as he stood on the threshold of his
father's palace.

"Where is the king?" he asked of the guard.

"You cannot see the king," was the answer; "but I will take you to his
nephews."

The man led the way into the feast hall, and there Theseus saw his fifty
cousins sitting about the table, and eating and drinking and making
merry; and there was a great noise of revelry in the hall, the minstrels
singing and playing, and the slave girls dancing, and the half-drunken
princes shouting and cursing. As Theseus stood in the doorway, knitting
his eyebrows and clinching his teeth for the anger which he felt, one of
the feasters saw him, and cried out:

"See the tall fellow in the doorway! What does he want here?"

[Illustration: "'GREAT KING,' HE SAID, 'I AM A STRANGER IN