Half a Hundred Hero Tales of Ulysses and The Men of Old

by Unknown

The days passed by, and Nisus went no more to Crete, but Androgeos, son of King Minos, came to Megara and abode there some little space, and the king and the princess welcomed him kindly for his father's sake. After his visit Androgeos would not sail back straight to his father's halls; he was minded first to see the great city of Athens, the eye of Greece. King Nisus warned him that the road across the mountains was difficult and dangerous, and that many robbers hid among those hills; but the prince would not be warned. He went his way, and the next news of him that came was that he had been set upon by bandits and murdered.

"He should have hearkened to the counsel of older and wiser men," said King Nisus. "I grieve for the youth, but he brought it on himself."

But when Minos the king heard that his son Androgeos was dead, he was stricken with a great grief, and he sent to King Nisus demanding blood-money, since the prince was slain in the lands of the Megarians. But Nisus refused to pay.

"It was no fault of mine," he said; "and I shall make no reparation for the death of one whose blood is on his own head."

Then was King Minos wroth, and threatened to make good in person his rightful claim.

So it chanced on a day when the Princess Scylla looked forth from her turret over the sea, as her custom was, she saw great ships, with bellying white sails, drawing near from the south; and as they rose upon the heaving billows, the sunbeams glinted back from many a shield and spear, for they carried the mailed warriors of King Minos coming to wrest from King Nisus blood-money for the death of Androgeos, son to King Minos, who had been slain by robbers on the lands of King Nisus.

Then stepped forth from one of the ships the herald of King Minos, and he came into the palace of Megara and proclaimed his master's will to all that stood there.

But Nisus the king frowned upon the herald. "I will pay no blood-money," he said. "Go your ways to your master and tell him so. Better were it for him to be satisfied with this answer of mine and to turn and hie him home. Little use is it for mortal men to strive against those who are protected by the undying gods. I care not for the wrath of King Minos, and the spears of his warriors have no more power to hurt my people than the bulrushes that children gather in the fields and break in mimic warfare with each other."

"Thou speakest in riddles, King Nisus," replied the herald; "but my master is of kin to the immortals, and it cannot be that they will let him quail before a petty king like thee."

So the herald turned and went back to his ships; and when King Minos heard that King Nisus refused to pay the blood-money, he made him ready for battle.