Rough was the monster's reply:
"Stupid or ignorant you must be to threaten me with the gods. The Cyclopes care not for Zeus or his ægis: we are mightier than he, and in this world the strong is the master. Not for the wrath of Zeus would I spare you. But where is your ship? On this shore or the far one? Answer."
Odysseus was not to be beguiled so simply. "Poseidon, the Earth-shaker, wrecked my ship," he declared, "and cast her on the rocky point at the island's end. Only I, with these men, escaped."
Without a word, the Cyclops leaped forward. His hairy arms shot forth. In each huge hand he seized one of the startled seamen. Before the luckless ones had time so much as to call aloud, he had dashed out their brains upon the rocky floor. Then, like some lion of the mountains, he tore them limb from limb and devoured them, washing down his horrible meal with draughts of milk.
Paying no heed to the sighs and tears and calls upon Zeus of the survivors, he stretched his gorged bulk at full length among his flock and slept, filling the cave with the sound of his noisome breathing.
Shaken with wrath at the outrage and the contempt, Odysseus was about to creep upon the sleeping horror and thrust his sharp sword into his vitals. He had marked the very spot, resolving to make sure first by feeling for the heart beat with his hand. But he reflected that this meant certain destruction for all, since they could by no possibility move the enormous door-stone. As best they might then, he and his crushed followers waited for the dawn.
They were not long left in doubt as to the monster's intentions toward the rest of them. At daybreak he stretched himself, rose yawning, and kindled the fire. Again he milked his herd and cared for them. Again he seized two struggling victims and slaughtered and devoured them for his morning meal.
Moving aside the boulder, he drove out goats and sheep, and replaced the door-stone as one might put the lid on a quiver. They heard his vast footfalls dying away, and his hoarse calls to his flock, as he drove them over the hills to pasturage. Penned up inexorably, they must await his return and its fresh horrors.