im go. In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what
should appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at
Hercules with five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at
liberty! But Hercules held on. By and by, no Geryon was there, but a
huge snake, like one of those which Hercules had strangled in his
babyhood, only a hundred times as big; and it twisted and twined about
the hero's neck and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and
opened its deadly jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was
really a very terrible spectacle! But Hercules was no whit
disheartened, and squeezed the great snake so tightly that he soon
began to hiss with pain.

You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the
power of assuming any shape he pleased. When he found himself so
roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into
such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the
hero would be glad to let him go. If Hercules had relaxed his grasp,
the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of
the sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of
coming up, in order to answer any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine
people out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of
their wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken
to their heels at once. For, one of the hardest things in this world
is, to see the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.

But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One
so much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own
figure. So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of
personage, with something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.

"Pray, what do you want with me?" cried the Old One, as soon as he
could take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so
many false shapes. "Why do you squeeze me so hard? Let me go, this
moment, or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!"

"My name is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "And you will never
get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden
of the Hesperides!"

When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
half an eye, that it would be