“There,” said he, pricking Sciron’s throat with his sword, “you have had a lesson in manners. You shall wash my feet and wait on me before you go over the cliff after your victims. For I am not going away to leave a brigand like you alive behind me.”
Sciron, like all such bullies, was a coward at heart, and his own men had no longer any respect for him now that he had been worsted by a stripling. Amid the laughter of the robbers, he had to wash the feet of Theseus, and to serve him humbly with meat and drink, and was finally punished for his many cruel murders by being thrown into the sea.
Having received the thanks of the country for ridding it of such a scourge, Theseus traveled on till he came to another village, where he thought he would rest a little.
No sooner had he entered the place, however, than he was surrounded by a number of armed men, who gave him to understand that he was their prisoner.
“Is this the way you treat travelers in your country?” asked he.
“Assuredly,” answered the captain of the troop. “You are in the country of King Cercyon, and the law is that no traveler may leave it until he has wrestled with the king.”
“I ask for nothing better,” said Theseus. “What happens to the traveler if he conquers Cercyon?”
“Then he may pass on.”
“But if Cercyon conquers him?”
“Then he is tortured till he dies.”