“Can you tell me, pretty maidens,” asked the stranger, “whether this is the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?”
On hearing the stranger’s question, they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with astonishment.
“The garden of the Hesperides!” cried one. “We thought mortals had been weary of seeking it after so many disappointments. And pray, adventurous traveler, what do you want there?”
“A certain king, who is my cousin,” replied he, “has ordered me to get him three of the golden apples.”
“And do you know,” asked the damsel who had first spoken, “that a terrible dragon with a hundred heads keeps watch under the golden apple-tree?”
“I know it well,” answered the stranger calmly. “But from my cradle upward it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with serpents and dragons.”
The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion’s skin which he wore, and, likewise, at his heroic limbs and figure, and they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of others.
“Go back!” cried they all; “go back to your own home! Your mother, beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she do more should you win ever so great a victory? No matter for the golden apples! No matter for the king, your cruel cousin! We do not wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up.”
The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances. He carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay half-buried in the earth near by. With the force of that idle blow the great rock was shattered all to pieces.
“Do you not believe,” said he, looking at the damsels with a smile, “that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon’s hundred heads?”