necessary to tell him everything that he
wanted to know. The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people.
Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the
wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts
of the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever
he undertook. He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told
the hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise
warned him of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he
could arrive thither.

"You must go on, thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after
taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very
tall giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he
happens to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of
the Hesperides lies."

"And if the giant happens not to be in the humor," remarked Hercules,
balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps I shall find
means to persuade him!"

Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He met with a
great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.

It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that
every time he touched the earth he became ten times as strong as ever
he had been before. His name was Antaeus. You may see, plainly enough,
that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow;
for, as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again,
stronger, fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had
let him alone. Thus, the harder Hercules pounded the giant with his
club, the further he seemed from winning the victory. I have sometimes
argued with such people, but never fought with one. The only way in
which Hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting
Antaeus off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and
squeezing him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of
his enormous body.

When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and
went to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have
been put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and
made